


If It's Not Perfect (Then It's Not)

by GlassParade



Series: The Varied Stages of Something Unlikely [3]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-01-08 13:26:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 90,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1133180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassParade/pseuds/GlassParade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A joyous occasion means Adam is summoned back to the Crawford familial bosom in England, and naturally Sebastian is his plus-one - under some slight duress, of course. It's not that Sebastian isn't interested in meeting Adam's family, it's just there's so many of them...and did there really have to be a wedding involved?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Envelope

_Monday_ , Sebastian thinks, lip curled in a sneer. _Never fails to prove that it’s the worst day of the week._

“Darling.” Adam’s voice through the bathroom door is calm, soothing, patient. “You have to eat.”

Sebastian leans his head back against the door, squirming a bit in irritation. At what, he doesn’t know. Himself? The situation? _I hate Mondays._ “I’ve only been in here for an hour.” He picks at the fringe that circles the edge of the bathroom rug. “I won’t starve.”

As Adam knows, since they’ve done this...well. Far too many times. Sebastian feels his face flush. He can just picture what’s going on outside, Adam leaning on the doorjamb, Roger with his big shaggy Pyrenees head in Adam’s lap while he waits for Tall Food Bringer to emerge from Big Water Bowl Room. Imperious Fitz in all his Yorkie dignity is more than definitely sitting by the apartment door staring pointedly at the leashes hanging there.

And Sebastian, in the bathroom, is holding up all the proceedings of their usual Monday, wrecking up the routine. Well. Actually. It is not his fault.

They're going to _Pippin_ later - Kurt got them into the open press rehearsal for his upcoming Broadway debut. Adam has planned to make some kind of banana toffee pie. Sebastian has photographs to review and a monthly schedule to put together for the photography studio he opened six months ago. They have to take the dogs out to the park. Tea in big pottery mugs is cooling on the kitchen table where he’d left it after Adam opened the mail and ruined everything.

 _Oh, be fair._ It isn’t Adam’s fault, either.

It’s his _brother’s._

Fucking _Monday._

"This isn't going to be like the night of your studio grand opening party, is it?" Adam's tone is still light, still patient, but Sebastian can hear the plaintive edge to it. His face burns hotter at the memory of the anxiety that had incapacitated him on the most important night of his life. "I absolutely support your need for isolation but four hours...love, I'd prefer not to have to go across the street to use the coffee shop restroom again. And we’re out of toaster pastries, I don’t have anything to push under the door for you."

“There’s a box of strawberry frosted in my gear bag.” Exactly for occasions such as this when his anxiety gets the better of him. “We need a bigger apartment.” He picks and picks and picks at the fringe, pulling bits of blue fuzz. “With a bedroom. Or a bigger closet. Something.”

"I know." He hears a soft sigh through the door, the gentle tap of Adam’s fingers drumming against the wood. “We don’t have to go, you know.”

Sebastian is picking at the rug with his left hand. Laying at his right hand is the entire reason he’s locked himself in their tiny bathroom in the first place. Square. Heavy. Ivory. Ominous.

Wedding invitations, he believes, should be outlawed. Well, not outlawed. And not all of them. You just shouldn’t be allowed to send them to a couple in their first year of being together. Especially not when you’re related to half of the couple. That should be doubly illegal. Punishable by fine. Or mild torture. There are details to work out, obviously.

He squints an eye and glares down at the invitation. Irrationally, he knows. He’s doing it anyway.

Funny. He’d always thought that when they got their first wedding invitation, it would be Kurt and Blaine. That was silly, in retrospect. Kurt and Blaine would never have a wedding in the first year of anyone’s relationship. They know how things work.

And, of course, they’d have to actually get around to setting a date. Nine years must be a record for an engagement.

Adam speaks up again, shaking Sebastian back to the more relevant situation at hand. “All right, I have to go, it's my brother and Chloe will want me to help with the cake, but you don’t have to go. If you don’t want to. I can tell them you’ve got a crippling fear of flying. They’d understand that, I’ve got an Aunt Linda who can’t get near an airport without having a fit.”

“I’m not having you tell your family I’m afraid to fucking fly, jesus.”

Silence, interrupted only by the sound of Roger letting out a big doggy whine, stretches between them and through the bathroom door for long moments before Adam sighs again and speaks. “They won’t bite, Sebastian, they’re just -”

“Just your family, I know.” His chest tightens with anxiety. “Just your mother and father and two brothers and two sisters and your grandmother and I guess there’s an Aunt Linda now and god only knows who else gathering for the big family wedding where they’ll get to meet Adam’s nervous wreck of a boyfriend and judge us both. Me for being an uptight deadbeat American and you for _clearly_ having a psychotic break and deciding I was an appropriate choice for a boyfriend.”

His throat swells up and cuts him off from saying more.

 _Family_.

Adam’s family, to Sebastian, is the grainy picture of his small, brightly smiling mother Moira in the Skype window on their twice weekly calls. Occasionally his tall, messy-haired, distracted looking father Stephen wanders through and smiles at the two of them. There are siblings, but they’ve never shown up on the calls Sebastian has been on and so he gets to think of them as mythological creatures. Endangered animals. Something.

They’re not real people. They’re...they’re computer people. Computer people are far away and not alarming at all. Computer people can’t judge him.

He glares down at the wedding invitation again, at the curling black script that announces that _Mr. and Mrs. William Philip Alden are proud to present the joyous occasion of their beloved daughter Chloe Lucinda-Jane Alden joining herself in holy matrimony to Brendan James Crawford..._

It’s not an invitation to joy, it’s a summoning to judgment.

“Don’t make me break down this door and hug you to death,” Adam warns, rapping a knuckle on the door. “I’ll do it, Dr. Marin said I was allowed to hug you into submission when you get all self-hatey like this."

"I’m not being self-hating. Everything I say about myself is entirely accurate."

"It's not. You’re an award winning former advertising professional who owns his own photography studio. You don’t think that’s impressive?”

He can’t help the scoff he lets out. “Not when I’m barely breaking even and we’re living on spaghetti most days because I’m bringing in half of what I used to.”

“It’s not about the money,” Adam reminds him. “Remember? It’s about the art. My mother can appreciate that, you know that." Moira wrote novels, had done so since Adam and his older brothers were babies - basically _because_ of Adam and his older brothers as babies, she frequently teases. She’s never known anything but self-employment.

Fine. Moira is unlikely to judge. Stephen, on the other hand, is a different story. He’s never known anything but teaching mathematics at the secondary school Adam and all his siblings attended. Despite Stephen’s always affable attitude, Sebastian is sure he must have definite thoughts about his son dating a deadbeat artist type. "But your father -"

"Has a soft spot for snarky, creative people, given that he married my _mother_ ," Adam counters, and Sebastian knows that anything he says will be met by the most perfectly logical and correct arguments in the world. Damn it.

He gets really peevish when he knows Adam is absolutely right. "Are you saying I remind you of your mother?"

"Shut up.” The eyeroll may be hidden from Sebastian’s view, but he knows it’s just happened. “No."

Still, Sebastian can’t stop fighting a losing battle. Time to tackle the myths and legends. "Okay. You have older brothers."

"Who will judge you for being my American boyfriend and that's really it. No other criteria will enter into it - and frankly, love, the American thing is what they'll focus on most." Adam chuckles. “If it helps, you’re taller?”

It doesn’t. "Sisters?" Sebastian challenges.

"Don't touch Rebecca's cello and you're fine. Rhiannon judges everyone. It won't be personal."

Defeat is certain. Sebastian has no further arguments. He doesn’t even want to bring up Aunt Linda and the rest. He drops his head. "I don’t come from a large family. It all just makes me nervous."

Fingers poke through the crack at the bottom of the bathroom door and wiggle. "I'll be with you."

Sebastian glances at the wiggling fingers before sighing and wrapping his hand around them. "I know, but…”

"Come on, love," Adam coaxes. "When was the last time you went overseas?"

Sebastian squints up at the ceiling to think. "Three or four years ago. Raving in Reykjavik with You Know Who."

"Ah. Right. Gregdemort." Sebastian can all but hear Adam nodding through the door. "This will be more fun."

"Really."

"Probably not," Adam concedes. "I feel a little too old for raves and I have no idea where one would be hosted in Ingatestone anyway. There's nowhere to do it that wouldn't involve livestock."

"Christ, the English countryside." Sebastian settles his head against the bathroom door with a solid thump and winces. “I am not the countryside type, Adam."

“You’ll love it,” comes the prompt reply. "I swear that you will. It’s very scenic. Lovely things to photograph. Lots of small animals to feed bread crumbs to and make them fall in love with you."

Not this again. "You make me sound like Snow White."

"We go to Central Park and thousands of squirrels know you're the best source of free cashews,” Adam reminds him with a slightly grating good cheer. “The small woodland creatures of Essex will adore you."

He is not going to think about the small woodland creatures of Essex right now. "Okay, okay. But what about the dogs? What happens when we’re not here to take them to work with us?"

"Kurt and Blaine, or maybe Connor and Rayna would be better, actually. I could even ask Will if he and James and Ginny can help out. In a pinch, we can kennel them for the week. Not that I like that idea." The fingers in his grasp wiggle. "There's a solution to every problem."

"Like the very expensive plane tickets?" This is the really big sticking point. Ever since he went self-employed, their income has been less steady than Sebastian likes. Sure, Adam's a partner in Sweets now, but there'd been some up-front investment involved in that. To say nothing of the huge loan Sebastian had taken out to start up his studio. They keep themselves and the dogs fed and clothed and they're happy, but there's no denying the reality of their situation: they aren't in a bigger apartment because they can't afford it right now, and plane tickets to England will be a huge, huge bite into their meager savings.

"We can use the credit card. It's for emergencies. We'll just tighten our belts a little more to pay it off with all of our wedding season commissions." Adam's voice is soothing and confident as always. "It’s June. You're getting the remainder of all those wedding photo shoot deposits soon, I’m getting cake deposit commissions, that'll help."

"I know. I just..." Nameless, faceless anxieties crawl under his skin as he runs out of fragile excuses not to go.

"I love you," Adam offers through the door.

"I love you, too." He hates this, how his anxiety can make him desperately want to get out of going to his boyfriend's brother's wedding. It's so not fair that Adam has to put up with it, that he has to worry even for a second that he might not get to go visit the family he hasn't seen in years.

Even now, all this time and therapy later, Sebastian still questions why Adam is even with him. Especially in times like this. _I just make things difficult._

" _When I wake up,_ " comes a soft laughing singsong of a whisper through the bathroom door. " _Well, I know I'm gonna be...I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you..._ "

There's no question, though, as to why Sebastian stays with Adam. No one could love him as much as Adam does, however unbelievable it sometimes is. And there's no one as loveable as Adam, no one could make him laugh or make his heart race like Adam can.

Every day, Sebastian falls a little harder, a little more desperately, a little more irreversibly in love with his boyfriend.

So of course he’s going to do this.

With care, he unwraps his fingers and tugs away, shifting around to pull open the bathroom door and see Adam leaning on the door jamb, a lopsided smile on his face and Roger's shaggy dog head in his lap, just as Sebastian had imagined. "There you are. Welcome back to the world."

“I thought…” He takes Adam’s hand again. “Maybe since you’re doing the cake, I could do the photographs? We could both write the plane tickets off as business expenses.”

“That’s my clever fellow.” Adam leans forward for a sweet kiss. “I can’t wait to show you my home...you _will_ love it, I promise. But as a bonus, I’ll inform you now that there is a 99.9% possibility that Brendan will not only ask me to be part of his wedding party, but that we men will all end up in kilts.”

That _is_ a cheering prospect. “Like John Barrowman?”

“I vaguely regret my role in enabling those photographs to be entered into your spank bank.” But Adam is grinning as he hauls Sebastian to his feet and plants another kiss on him, less sweet this time, more giving Sebastian ideas. Naughty ones. Reenacting last night’s fun and games ones. “But yes, like John Barrowman.”

“Mm. Tell me more.” Adam in a kilt. Oh, he likes that idea. This whole trip idea won’t be so bad after all, maybe. He steers Adam back towards their bed, tugging at the waistband of his jeans. “In detail.”

“Ah ah ah no.” Adam wriggles free. “Sorry, love. Too much to do, and we’ve got _Pippin_ later. Kurt would never forgive us for missing his big debut.”

“It’s two o’clock,” Sebastian protests as Fitz trots over and starts yipping to go out. He leans down and picks him up, scritching at the dog's fluffy puppy head. “Curtain is at _eight_. How long do you think we can spend in bed?”

Smirking, Adam slides away and into the kitchen, dumping out their cold tea and refilling the kettle. “If I show you, we will _definitely_ miss curtain.”

Fuck, but Sebastian loves this man.

But when he looks back on it a good long while later, Sebastian will wonder why the first day of the rest of his life had to be a _Monday_.

No wonder he never saw it coming.

And the whole spending a chunk of it freaking out in the bathroom was a bit inauspicious as well.

Important days, he will decide then, should come with warnings.

But that's later.


	2. What's The Worst That Could Happen?

"I think I left the iron plugged in," Sebastian blurts in a panic, sitting up very straight out of a dead sleep.

Adam swipes the screen of his e-reader, squinting to read through a blur of exhaustion. "Too bad, love," he yawns, giving up and tucking the little device away when he can’t make sense of what he’s reading - maybe _Cloud Atlas_ hadn’t been the best choice for the trip. "We're an hour from Heathrow, can't exactly pop back and fix it now. We'll text Blaine when we're on the ground." He’s pretty sure that they had not, in fact, left anything plugged in at all, but it’s best to humor Sebastian when he first wakes up.

"Okay." Sebastian slumps back in his seat. "An hour to landing? Do you think they'll let me buy a double scotch?"

A chuckle escapes while Adam reaches over to rub the back of Sebastian's neck. "Sorry, darling. Drinks service is over." He digs a water bottle out of his carry on bag with his free hand and sets it on the tray. "That will have to do. You know, I can't believe that you're far better traveled than I, yet still a nervous flyer."

"Everyone knows the sketchiest moments on a flight are takeoff and landing," Sebastian yawns, stretching like a cat under Adam's fingers. "Not that planes can't crash anytime for any reason."

The matter of fact potential death sentence startles Adam into snatching his hand away and gripping the arms of his seat in a moment of sheer horror. "Oh, that's comforting. Thanks for that, love. Fantastic." With effort, he peels his fingers off of the arm rests and reaches for his own bottle of water. "Now I wish I'd given you a _double_ dose of melatonin before the flight," he mumbles, freezing as the words leave his mouth. Oops.

Sebastian blinks in surprise, eyes widening. "What?"

"Nothing!" There is more than a touch of guilt being felt over the surreptitious drugging. He should never have taken Kurt’s advice. But Sebastian had been so tense and he’d refused to take the Xanax...

Sebastian's eyes narrow in suspicion, but he doesn't pursue the point. After a moment, he leans down to pull a leatherbound portfolio out of his carry-on. "Okay. So."

The sight of the portfolio - omnipresent for the last four months - sets Adam's teeth on edge. He rather wishes he had the nerve to bring the surreptitious drugging back up. "Oh, love. Not this again."

"It's this or I talk to you about stress and wear statistics on transatlantic traveling aircraft.” He pauses, portfolio half in and half out of his bag, jaw set. Adam takes a deep breath and lets it back out as quietly as he can. It’s not really a big deal - he just wishes he could make Sebastian’s nerves settle, help the anxiety melt away. Unfortunately, no one's come up with a magic remedy for that sort of thing. Ergo, the portfolio...and patience. Lots of it.

“You could read...oh, go ahead, it’s fine.” It’s got to be the last time the portfolio - a complete file on Adam's entire immediate family, painstakingly assembled by Sebastian over the last few months - comes out anyway, they’re so close to landing. And if it helps Sebastian get mostly calm by the time they arrive, it’s fine.

Sebastian tilts his head and observes Adam for a bit before shrugging and sitting up straight, opening the portfolio across his lap. “Okay. So. Your dad and one of your sisters will be meeting us at Heathrow."

"Yes. Rhiannon. Rebecca will be rehearsing the string quartet that Brendan and Chloe have bribed her into forming for the wedding." Very little about this entire week is unscheduled. He knows that the portfolio includes a tightly regimented schedule emailed over by Chloe, who is running the wedding like an army maneuver. “Chloe will be with them as well, remember.” Because Chloe is letting not a single moment pass by without checking and double-checking all the details she can, the hour-plus long trip from the airport back to Ingatestone is being treated as a Photo and Cake Summit. “You and Chloe will get along quite well, I think. You both love animals and extreme sarcasm.”

“Ha. Ha. I laugh.” Sebastian rifles through pages in the portfolio, the neatly formatted individual dossiers he’d put together on every member of the family, complete with photographs, hobbies, and, if Adam is correctly remembering one tipsy-on-wine night from a couple of weeks ago, food allergies. “And you’re sure I’ll be able to tell the twins apart?”

“I _promise_ you will be able to tell the twins apart.” Adam hasn’t seen his little sisters in person in a while - he’d left home when they were three, and the process of becoming a legal resident of the US had meant that he couldn’t go home often, so getting to know the twins had been confined to quick Skype conversations as they were coming or going from the house. Still, even that limited contact assured him that his sisters were wildly different young women, and he has no concerns about Sebastian's ability to keep them straight. “Trust me, love. They barely even look alike anymore. Well.” He shrugs. “Obviously they look alike, they could still switch places if they wanted to, but they don’t. They’re very different and you are very intelligent, I’m not worried.”

“Easy for you to say.” Sebastian’s mouth is tightened in a line as he studies the twins’ pages, taking in Rhiannon's smirk, Rebecca's serenity, the combat boots and cello and ripped tights and sleek silver bangle bracelet with matching earrings. No, there will be no mistaking which twin is which, but when Adam looks more closely he can see the tension shivering under the surface of Sebastian's skin.

“Perhaps it is easy for me to say, since they're my sisters.” Hoping his smile is reassuring, Adam reaches out and places his hand over Sebastian’s, stilling the tremble in the long, graceful fingers. “But it’s the truth nonetheless. I’m not worried. I absolutely believe in you.”

“Good. One of us has to.” The papers shuffle, and Chloe’s page comes up, headed with a photograph Adam knows full well was taken two months ago, but looks as if it could have been taken when they were both eighteen and sitting their A-levels. _So not fair._ Sebastian’s finger traces over the blonde curls spilling over Chloe’s shoulders. “This is Chloe. The bride, yes? You and she were friends in school?”

“Longer than. We've known each other our whole lives.” He still couldn't believe that Chloe was _marrying_ his oldest brother. _Willingly_. Well, she'd always sworn she'd do it, and maybe Brendan wasn't entirely the first class arse he'd been while Adam was growing up. Surely becoming a veterinary doctor might have matured him a bit.

Adam wasn't counting on it.

Sebastian nudges his arm, catching him back into the present. “And she breeds sheep?”

“Her family’s business is in breeding sheep. Chloe got an agriculture degree with a specialty in animal husbandry so she could work for them.” And the story of Brendan becoming reacquainted with Chloe when he went out to Alden Farm to help with a difficult birthing situation was one they'd probably tell their kids and grandkids at every family dinner ever.

It's not often one meets their future wife while she's elbow deep in the back end of an ewe and shrieking for you to get a fucking move on, after all. Adam snickers every time he thinks about it.

Sebastian squints at the photo again. “So...you’re telling me I would get along with a woman who shoves her hands into animal orifices for a living.”

Adam snorts. “We could talk about where _your_ hands have been.”

The look he gets for that could be construed as a threat by most governmental agencies. And he is absolutely going to pay for it later.

_Worth it._

Sebastian lifts his chin and flips to the next page. “Timothy’s the quiet one, he’ll be around later...so let’s move on to your father -”

“Darling.” He reaches out again, his hand more firm on Sebastian’s this time, moving the nervous twitching fingers away from the page. “I understand you’re nervous. I just don't understand why you're _this_ nervous. Everything is going to be fine.”

The expression creasing Sebastian’s face into anxious lines goes well beyond skepticism into actively questioning Adam’s sanity. “You can’t know that. Neither of us can.”

“Of course I can! You’ve spoken to my parents dozens of times, they like you already. My sisters are decent kids. Brendan and Timothy...well.” There’s not much he can say about his brothers without getting aggravated himself, so he’s stuck to the basics. “They're older brothers, they exist. But I was serious when I said you and Chloe would get on.”

The trembling of Sebastian’s hand increases with his visibly growing agitation. “Your parents...the Skype conversations...that’s _different_. I keep telling you it’s different. You don’t…”

Adam curls his fingers around Sebastian’s hand and lifts it to his lips, pressing a kiss to the back of it before closing his other hand around it. “I do, a bit. I've met your parents, that went well, didn’t it? After the first few min...hours?"

It had taken some time for Michael Smythe to thaw out towards Adam. Apparently there had been a Greg incident on one of his previous visits to New York. No one would reveal the details, but Adam is not surprised that it had resulted in a miniature ice age over their first dinner together. Still, he came out of it alive, and Sebastian’s mother Anne had been lovely, kind and intelligent and wickedly funny. They chat almost every day now. "Your mother liked me. Does like me. And she's a law professor, I'm just a bakery manager and sometimes actor, but she doesn't care. Your father’s just happy I’m not Greg."

"Everyone likes you,” Sebastian sighs. “What you do for a living doesn't matter when you're impossible to dislike. You are a Disney prince."

"So the Snow White comparison _is_ appropriate." Adam grins and kisses Sebastian’s hand again. “I told you the squirrel thing meant something.”

He’s pleased to see that Sebastian can’t help but smile at that, more pleased when Sebastian leans forward to plant a kiss on him and mutter, "Shut up," against his lips. When they pull apart, it takes Sebastian a moment to restart, to collect his thoughts. "I'm not like you."

"Yes. It's one of your many delightful redeeming qualities, my cantankerous darling." While Sebastian is distracted, Adam can tug the portfolio away, tuck the papers back into the pockets and close it up. “Along with being gorgeous, fit, well-mannered, nicely dressed, creative, intelligent, hygienic -”

“Hygienic?” Sebastian raises an eyebrow. “Is that seriously something you actively list as one of my good qualities?”

“It should be something everyone considers a good quality,” Adam says, lifting an eyebrow right back. “Aren’t you happy that I’m hygienic?”

“Well, of course I am,” Sebastian tosses back with an eyeroll. “Look, I am well aware of my many excellent qualities. I used them to full advantage on a lot of guys before you came along.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“You came along...and stayed.” His fingers link and twist together, the knuckles whitening and reddening in turn. “And brought parents with you. New territory. I’m still getting used to navigating it, and just when I think I get it, something else comes along that I have to get right.”

“There’s nothing to _get_ right, love, it's not a test for school." He reaches over yet again to take Sebastian's hands, this time untangling the poor abused fingers. "Look, you’re worried about making a poor impression on my family, whereas I’m absolutely _positive_ my brothers are going to actively try to make the worst possible impression on you, because they are older brothers and that is what they do. I’m more concerned that they’ll actually succeed. Older brothers are _much_ worse than parents.” He pauses. "Well. Mine are, at any rate."

“Yeah, but they’re jocks, right? Jocks being jerks I can handle,” Sebastian says, sounding abruptly more confident and like himself. “As a recovering jerkish jock, I know how the game is played, and having grown into what I consider to be a generally slightly decent human being, I have coping skills for this kind of thing. The brothers are not going to be a problem. I think.”

 _I sincerely hope that's the case._ “It’s really just my parents, then.”

Sebastian nods, once, quick and short. “Parents aren’t a game, my usual ‘overachieving perfectionist asshole’ schtick isn’t helping me here. It’s just making everything worse.” He sighs, the air puffing out his cheeks as he rubs at the bridge of his nose like a headache is setting in. His gaze slides over to meet Adam’s. “This is your last chance to disown me before we land and go through customs.”

“I’d never. It’s going to be fantastic, honestly.” Adam lifts the arm rest between them. “You’re ridiculous in all the best ways. Come here.”

Sebastian shifts around in his seat so that he can lean back against Adam’s chest and relax into the offered embrace. It’s not the most comfortable position, but as ever, having Sebastian in his arms makes Adam feel quietly happy, at home, all right with the world. He can tell by the way Sebastian’s breathing is evening out and his body is growing heavy and slack with relaxation that the feeling is mutual.

He loves this. Loves Sebastian. No matter what happens in England, they’ll get through it.

Long moments pass where the only sounds are the murmur of other passengers and the plane engines. It’s comfortable, companionable, and then - “You doped me for the flight, didn’t you?”

“I did.” Adam cringes, pressing a repentant kiss to Sebastian’s temple. “I’m sorry. I feel awful about it.”

Twisting his head around, Sebastian glares a little, but Adam can see it’s mostly out of mock sternness and irritation. “You should, for listening to Kurt. You know he’s a menace.”

“It will never happen again,” he pledges.

“Good.” Sebastian settles back in, yawning a little. “Because I’m _still_ sleepy, and there’s no way I’m gonna get in a decent nap before we arrive. I’m going to look awful when I meet your family, and it’s all your fault.”

Adam ruffles the sleep-tousled mass of Sebastian’s hair. “I think you’re at your most adorable when you’ve just woken up, actually.”

“You’re a giant sap, Adam.”

“And you love it.”

“I love _you_ ,” Sebastian corrects. “Which...fine. I suppose that means I love you being a giant sap.”

“I love you and the prickly exterior trying so very hard to hide the fact that you are susceptible to giant saps.” He kisses Sebastian again. “I know all your dark secrets and I love them. Now let’s try to get a touch more sleep. They’ll wake us up when we have to prepare for landing.”

Sebastian yawns again. “All right.” And despite his declaration, he’s out like a light in seconds, leaving Adam to settle back in his seat and try to catch a few winks of his own.

And to try not to think about his foot resting against his own carry-on bag, where the leather of his shoe and the nylon of the luggage and some cardboard and velveteen are all that separate him from the question he’s been holding back from asking Sebastian for _months_.

 _Maybe_ , he thinks as he begins to drift off, _I’ll finally find the right moment._

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next update will be on February 8th, 2014. Thank you for reading and for your awesome feedback! If you're interested, occasionally I post tidbits of upcoming chapters on [my Tumblr](http://glitterdammerung.tumblr.com).


	3. Life, Box of Chocolates, Etc.

"' _Go get our bags_ ,'" he says. ' _I'll be right out_ ,' he says."

Wary glances from skittering passersby tell Sebastian that he’s not really mumbling as under his breath as he thinks, but he really doesn’t care. He is tired. He is angry. He is alone in the swirling ocean of humanity that is Heathrow Terminal Five.

He is on his last ragged nerve and in desperate need of coffee and a shower.

Sebastian drags his and Adam's suitcases to a halt and glares at the shopfront sign just ahead. A sign that says _WH Smith_ , and not a damn thing about coffee. His snort of contempt is explosive. "' _There's a coffee shop right around the corner_ ,' he says. And yet this is not a coffee shop, is it, Adam?" When he laughs, it's only a _little_ hysterical. "Oh, wait, you can't answer me. Because _you're not here_."

Shoving the suitcases against the wall by the news stand that is most emphatically _not_ a coffee shop, Sebastian leans next to them, closes his eyes, and takes many long, slow, deep breaths until the urge to strangle someone passes.

It takes a couple of minutes.

Trouble had begun the minute they stepped into the customs area at Heathrow. "Oh, my," Adam had breathed, hitching the strap of his carry on further up on his shoulder. "Oh, my."

"What?" Sebastian had glanced around the room, looking at the three lines of people that Adam was studying with such despair.

"Well. I..." Adam had sighed. "I hadn't realized there were so many British passengers on the flight."

"So?"

"So...as a non-UK and non-EU citizen, that's your line," he'd said, pointing at the shortest of the three. "But I’m still a subject of the dear old Queen. So it's this one that's mine."

At which point he'd indicated the longest line, three dozen people deep, and Sebastian's ears filled with the sound of a radio stuck between stations.

"Go out - get bags," he had vaguely heard Adam saying. "Coffee - corner - arrivals - _get decaf_ \- be there - love?"

He'd only registered every other word or so and a comforting kiss on the cheek before he had staggered off into his customs line and went through in a daze before being funneled out into Heathrow's Terminal Five and swept along to baggage claim.

And now he was here. Adamless. Coffeeless. Clueless.

Things in England were not getting off to a good start.

"'Get decaf' had to be a joke," he mumbles, pushing himself away from the wall and grabbing the suitcase handles. "Fuck jet lag, I cannot face this family without -"

"Sebastian?"

He freezes. _Oh no. No. No no no._

Unless Adam has experienced an impossibly spontaneous and thorough gender switch in the last half hour, that is not the voice Sebastian wants to hear saying his name.

_I’m not ready._

He’s still kind of hungover from the melatonin and the flight. He knows his hair is a wreck; he caught a glimpse of himself reflected in a glass partition on the moving walkway. His breath does not even bear thinking about. And _Adam is not here_.

“Sebastian? That’s you, right?”

He’s not ready. He has no choice. Heart sinking the considerable distance down into his shoes, Sebastian opens his eyes and looks around.

“Down here.” A wave catches his attention and Sebastian glances down to see that the sweet, clear voice he’s hearing belongs to what at first looks like nothing so much as a pile of blonde curls attached to a pair of overalls. “Hello, I’m -”

“Chloe,” he hears himself wheeze while darkness infringes on the outskirts of his vision. “Chloe Alden?”

He might be verging on a panic attack, but there's a zing of triumph that goes through him at the same time. _I knew that file was a good idea. I knew it._

“So formal. Call me Chloe, or just Cee is fine too." Chloe’s face brightens with a big smile and Sebastian’s sight begins to clear in the sunshine of it, the black melting away and resolving her into an actual person, smallish, with big brown eyes lots of hair and a personality that’s practically its own separate entity. She hurls herself forward for a hug, forcing him to let go of the suitcases to catch her. “Oh, I’m so happy to meet you at last! We’ve been waiting ages, Adam texted to say you were getting out first, alone, so we’ve been keeping an eye out for you - oh, this is Rhiannon,” she burbles, pulling back to point at a slightly taller girl with dark hair falling all around her surly, but pretty face. “Adam’s sister.”

Rhiannon only bothers to tug the huge headphones she’s wearing off of one ear. She doesn't even really look up from where she's thumbing out a text on her phone. “Hi. I’m not into hugging.”

“Works for me.” He rubs a hand over his eyes and tries to stifle a yawn as he focuses back on Chloe, grasping for details. "You. I remember you. The sheep fister."

Regret is swift and instantaneous, flooding his cheeks with heat as Rhiannon guffaws and Chloe takes a step back, raising one skeptical eyebrow. “You want to rephrase that?”

“I want to take it back,” he groans into the palm of his hand, wishing he could melt into the linoleum. “I want to take it back, and then I want you to kill me.”

“I would, but Adam would be unhappy with me and I don’t think I want to get married in a prison chapel,” Chloe replies, laughter burbling under the surface of her voice and making it unsteady. “I will, however, let you make it up to me by buying me a coffee. There’s a place just -”

“Around the corner, I know,” he sighs, lifting his head to see her biting her lip to hold the laughter in, eyes glittering with the effort. “Point the way. I’m desperate.”

“Yes, I can see that.” Chloe loops her arm through his and grabs one of the suitcases. “I’ll do you a favor and tell you now that Adam’s father is waiting for us at the coffee place. Maybe don’t say anything until you get your own coffee in you?”

Behind them, Rhiannon snickers. "Adam texted again, says don’t let him drink anything with caffeine.”

"Adam is mean and the situation dire. I was just publicly accused of bestiality, so I get to make the call." Chloe winks up at Sebastian. "But we'll compromise: half-caf."

Sebastian feels the knots in his chest and stomach loosen and can't help but grin down at his new friend. Maybe he will survive this week after all. "Adam was right. I _do_ like you."

"Wholesale misinterpretation of my career aside, I might just like you too." When she smiles, Chloe's nose crinkles at the bridge and lends her an irresistibly elfin air. "And if you promise not to have me sectioned for untoward behavior towards animals, I'll let you come to the farm and feed the abandoned lambs with me one of these mornings."

He might survive the week; Adam may not survive the night. Sebastian’s tongue takes a slow trip around the inside of his mouth before Sebastian purses his lips and shakes his head. "He mentioned the Snow White thing to you."

"Yeah.” She reaches up to tap him on the nose. “I think it’s _adorable_.”

“Gagging over here,” Rhiannon sighs, tugging at her headphones.

Chloe's head whips around, her ponytail slapping Sebastian's arm as she shoots a mild glare over her shoulder. "Be nice."

"I am nice." Rhiannon steps up and grabs the handle of the other suitcase out of his hand, continuing forward without breaking stride. "I could have recorded this entire conversation and saved it for blackmail."

Sebastian and Chloe are left staring after her, Chloe shaking her head. "If you could bottle teenage contempt, it would strip the rust off a shipwreck. None too gently, mind." She gets to walking again. "She's not a bad kid, though. Just, you know..."

"Sarcastic." Sebastian decides that with careful attention to whatever the hell he's saying, he's probably actually safe to talk. "It's fine. I've always wondered what I'd have been like as a seventeen year old _girl_ and now I know."

"I heard that." Rhiannon's scowl is practically audible as she glares over her shoulder at them.

"I regret nothing," he shoots back. His reward is an icy blue eyeroll through a mop of black waves that makes his fingers itch to get the camera out and his mouth twist into a grin. Adam’s sister is as terrifying as expected, but in a fun way. And Chloe has managed to strike the perfect balance between spunky and sweet. He’s still a little nervous about meeting Mr. Crawford, but the women have certainly managed to take the edge off of his anxiety.

Maybe Adam was right. Maybe this won’t be too bad.

“You seem to have relaxed,” Chloe comments as they meander through the terminal. “I’m glad. I asked to be part of the whole…” She lifts her free hand in air quotes. “‘Welcome Team’ thing, you know.”

“Yeah.” He tugs at the carry-on strap across his chest. “So we could talk about arrangements on the way home.”

She blinks up at him. “Hm? Oh, no. Not really. I mean yes, but also no. That is, Adam mentioned that you were really wound up about meeting us. The original plan was that everyone would be here.”

Icy chills tickle his spine at the very thought, displacing a fleeting prickle of irritation at feeling as if he’d been slightly managed by Adam and his well-meaning concern. “Oh.”

“So I just made sure everyone else had something to do or somewhere else to be except for the three calmest of us.” She beams. “Rebecca arguably would have been a slightly less sarcastic choice than Rhiannon, but she’s busy rehearsing the chamber trio, and a little sarcasm never killed anyone, at any rate.”

Managed or not - there’s that prickle again, with a touch of resentment and feeling patronized to keep it company - he is not without gratitude for not having to face the entire Crawford gang fresh off the plane. Sebastian shrugs off the irritation with a little effort. “I’m pretty sure your entire comedy industry is predicated on that notion,” he muses, letting another grin slip. A grin that slips right back away when he spots the signage for Costa Coffee and anxiety makes his nerve endings dance a jig. “Oh. Dad time.”

Chloe’s hand is warm on his arm. “He’s really great, I promise. All his students at the school have called him Professor Weasley for _years_ , if that gives you any idea.”

“Professor Weasley?” High school and the _Harry Potter_ series seem a lifetime away; he’s having to scramble through long-forgotten memories and coming up empty. “I don’t -”

“You will.” The hand on his arm disappears as Chloe throws her arm up in a wave. “Hey, Mr. C.! I got him!”

 _Ah._ The meaning behind the school nickname for Stephen Crawford becomes clear to Sebastian in an instant of memories, despite the fact that the kindly-faced fatherly man looking up from a copy of The Guardian isn’t a redhead at all. His affable smile, rumpled sport jacket, and slightly curious expression really do scream _Arthur Weasley_ from across the shop. Had Arthur Weasley taught math, at least.

There has never been a less threatening Father of a Boyfriend in the history of dating. Sebastian’s nerves settle again as he takes in what Adam will almost certainly look like in twenty years. The resemblance is startling, but reassuring, too. “Mr. Crawford.”

“Stephen. Which I do hope you’ll call me. Chloe here never does.” Laugh lines crinkle the edges of Stephen’s blue eyes - very like Adam’s - and his handshake is firm. “Makes me feel like the neighborhood dotty old dad.”

“You _are_ the neighborhood dotty old dad, Mr. C.,” Chloe says, sweeping over to the table where Rhiannon is already perched in a chair, knees up and boots planted on the seat. She parks the suitcase in her grasp next to the one Rhiannon had dragged in and flops down in the next seat over. “And I’ve been calling you Mr. C. since I was in primary school, marrying Brendan doesn’t just change old habits overnight.”

Stephen takes his own seat and indicates an empty one next to him for Sebastian before focusing on his future daughter-in-law. “You’ve been dating for three years, Chloe, statistically speaking, I should think -”

“Dad, don’t bring maths into this, _please_ ,” Rhiannon groans. “It’s not a school day, give it a rest.”

“Rhiannon, maths doesn’t -”

“Take a day off,” Surprising them all, Adam’s greeting is a sleepy chuckle from behind them just before he leans down to drape himself over Sebastian in a lazy, tired hug. “We know, Dad. Hello, am I ever glad that customs experience is over.”

 _So am I._ Sebastian wants to get up and just collapse against his boyfriend in relief. No matter the possible patronizing, no matter Sebastian’s slight irritation, no matter how funny and kind Chloe, Rhiannon - relatively speaking - and Stephen are, Adam is _home_ , Adam is refuge, Adam is a place for Sebastian to catch his breath, and even now he could really use a moment for that.

But he’s also okay with getting beaten to the punch by the others, who swarm Adam with smiles, hugs, and sheer joy, pulling him away from Sebastian into a swirl of chatter. Chloe pulls back a little and leans down to whisper, “Now’s a good time to grab the coffee, so he doesn’t know it’s not decaf,” and winks at him, giving his hand a squeeze before she turns back to hug Adam a bonecracking third time.

She has a point, but Sebastian takes a minute to stay seated and watch the flurry of activity amongst the Crawfords, the bickering laughter and three pairs of blue eyes and animated hands and the same bright-the-world smiles. And Chloe fitting in smoothly with her bounce and shine, as if she’s always been one of them - well, he guesses she has been, really.

Next to them he feels distinctly uptight and humorless, certainly a product of his prep school and lawyers for parents upbringing. Never has he felt so much his father’s son, and that, given Michael’s pedantic inflexibility and perpetual inability to display much affection to anyone besides his wife, doesn’t feel especially good right now.

Maybe the coffee run is a good idea after all. Sebastian gets to his feet and wanders over to the counter, but he keeps an eye on the Crawfords and their happiness and exuberance and wonders what it might have been like to have a family like that. He does love his parents - even his father, yes - appreciates all they provided to him, the education and the intellectual nurturing. His grandparents with their quiet delight in his interest in photography and the surreptitious encouragement under the nose of his father’s disapproval, that was good too.

Sebastian knows he hasn’t had a bad life - maybe a little rocky and he definitely made some tremendously stupid choices along the way, but he had every advantage and then some. That’s something to be grateful for, and he is, most of the time.

It’s just that...something like this might have been nice, too, he’s realizing. Would it have made a difference in the choices he made and the attitudes he espoused? Maybe he wouldn’t have been quite such a little shit if the Smythes had been more like the Crawfords.

Or maybe he just was always going to be a little shit.

_Well, that’s a comforting thought._

He gathers up the five plain coffees and pushes his overthinking aside as he makes his way back to the table, where everyone’s sprawled out over the chairs and chattering a hundred miles a minute, so absorbed that Adam barely notices when Sebastian slips a cup into his hand. “So you’re really doing this all DIY?” Adam asks Chloe, leaning with his chin in his hand and a fascinated expression on his face. “Amazing. I mean, my friend Kurt does freelance wedding planning in his spare time, and I know from watching him that it can’t be easy, he’s always having meltdowns over doves and glitter and tulle.”

“Well, but doing it ourselves means we can actually afford to take a proper honeymoon, and not just rent a leaky tent on the Isle of Wight,” Chloe says, mouthing thanks at Sebastian when he pushes her cup over to her. “You know my father gets away with not paying me a lot because I’m family and I love what I do. And Brendan may be the best vet in Ingatestone, but it’s _Ingatestone_ , and my family is his biggest client.” She shrugs and grins, completely at ease. “I’d rather take all the annoyance and stress of the last several months and make it pay out into a nice week on a beach in Greece, thank you. It’s worth it. And really, it hasn’t been so bad.”

“Speak for yourself,” Rhiannon’s pretty face twitches into a scowl. “If I have to untangle one more giant knot of fairy lights, I’m taking off for Manchester and you’re on your own.”

Adam reaches over to pat his sister’s knee. “I’ll help you out with that, Rhi.”

“No, you’ll be too busy baking cake and getting fitted with your kilt,” Chloe informs Adam, all impish grin and mischief. “Which I get to watch, by the way. I may be marrying one Crawford fellow, but I know all of them look good in a kilt, and I am _claiming_ that wedding perk.”

That’s an attention grabber and pleasant distracting thought. Sebastian’s only ever seen Kurt in a kilt, and that was not at all a bad sight, but he’s been having some very pleasant dreams and daydreams of Adam in a kilt for several months and wonders if he can claim that particular perk to share. “Can I -”

“Get you pictures if you help Rhiannon,” Chloe stage-whispers and winks, and, yes. Yes, that is an acceptable compromise, because a) pictures are a permanent record and b) untangling strings of lights with Rhiannon is likely to be a quiet enterprise, and as much as he is half-enjoying the boisterous racket of this family, he is also sure he’s half-going to need the occasional break from them.

Especially if this contingent is the _calm_ one. Yikes. Sebastian downs half his coffee in a gulp.

Chloe resumes the conversation with Adam, and her voice is a little too casual all of a sudden. “So...you should know that David’s doing the flowers...” She trails off, and when Sebastian looks up from his coffee, her cheeks are flushed a rosy pink while she evades Adam’s eyes. “He -”

“David’s doing the flowers?” Adam blurts, abruptly flustered in a way Sebastian is pretty sure he doesn’t like. “David _Morgan_? You are joking?”

Chloe’s cheeks just get more and more pink. “Um, no. No, it’s David, that David.” Which news she clearly isn’t enjoying delivering, and when Sebastian looks at the other Crawfords, they look away. Which does not really give his assessment of the situation any kind of positive reinforcement.

And Adam is still confused. “But he lives in Leeds! He’s not a florist, he’s a nurse. Why isn’t his dad doing your flowers?”

“His dad...Mr. M. had to go into care, Adam.” Chloe bites her lip. “You hadn't heard?”

“No, I -” Light dawns on Adam’s face.  “Oh, the dementia?”

Stephen breaks in with a nod. “It got worse, and Mrs. Morgan just couldn’t keep up, you know, she only ever did the books and didn’t know anything about flowers. And of course she’s getting on.”

“Of course,” Adam mutters with a nod, and Sebastian is definitely not going to start a fan club over the creeping blush and tiny puzzled smile on his boyfriend’s face.

Oblivious to the tension suddenly encircling the table - so that’s definitely a Crawford trait, Sebastian realizes - Stephen goes on. “So the shop was closed for months until David could get free from the hospital and come home. They thought at first he could have the care of his father, but it was more complicated than they expected, so...James went into care, and David decided to reopen the shop so his mother had something to do to keep her days busy.” His smile makes no indication that he’s noticing anything amiss. “It’s nice that he did, no one liked having Morgan’s Flowers closed, you know they’ve been there for so long now. And he’s doing the wedding at cost. Says hello, by the by.”

“But David never wanted to run the shop.” Adam is shaking his head, face a little crestfallen. “He liked nursing. I thought.”

Chloe’s hand crosses the table to take Adam’s. “He does, but he wants to take care of his parents, and he always had a knack for the arrangements, you know that. He doesn’t seem to mind. Truly.”

But Adam still seems unhappy on hearing this, and it’s making Sebastian a little uncomfortable to see it, the visible sense of deep investment that Adam clearly has in this nurse, this florist, this nice parent-caring guy David. Whoever else he is.

Sebastian’s stomach churns the ingested coffee like it’s trying to make butter out of it. _Jealousy_. Christ, it’s been so long since he’s experienced it, he didn’t recognize it at first. And it is just as unlikeable as Adam’s interest in David. “So,” he begins, struggling for a moment to keep himself casual. “Who’s David?”

Chloe’s smile is bright. Much too bright. “Oh, you know, he ran around with us in school -”

“He was my first boyfriend, Sebastian,” Adam interrupts gently. “And a friend, yes, but we did date for a little while in school.” He casts a lopsided smile at Chloe. “We’re not really in the business of keeping secrets, Cee. I know you meant well, but no need.” He reaches over and picks up Sebastian’s cup, very clearly done with the topic. “Is this decaf?”

“No. Drink your own.” He tugs the cup back and hopes his scowl of annoyance over this David person is accepted to be a mock scowl over the attempt to purloin his coffee. _No one told me there was going to be an ex-boyfriend involved._ “I needed at least some caffeine.”

And to his relief, Chloe - whether she knows it or not - helps him with the ruse. “When we found him, he was half-asleep and completely filterless, Adam,” Chloe chides. “I am not sending him in to meet the rest of the family in that sort of state, he’d be totally unprepared. I’m not heartless!”

Chloe is _definitely_ his new best friend.

But she is not Adam’s best friend, at least not at the moment. “But caffeine...we’re never going to get to sleep at a decent hour now.” Adam’s smile droops a little, and he pushes his coffee aside. “I was trying to fight the jet lag. Damn.”

Rhiannon raises an eyebrow. “What made you think you were going to get to sleep at a decent hour anyway? You know we’re going back to the house, and it’s barely even ten o’clock right now.”

“But it’s just Mum and everyone, they’ll let us get off to bed - ” Adam trails off as everyone at the table begins to avoid looking at them all at once, and Sebastian pushes his own coffee away when anxiety makes his stomach really start to heave. “Oh, no. You didn’t.”

 _That cannot be good._ Just when Sebastian had thought he was out of the woods...

Pressing her fingertips together, Rhiannon takes a deep interest in the ceiling of the coffee shop. “Rebecca and everyone. They’re at the house practicing.”

“That’s Rebecca, and her girlfriend Hayley, you know she plays flute, and that piano player they both used to date, I forget his name but he’s there,” Chloe explains to her cup of coffee. “Also, Brendan’s texted me that he went into town and got David from the flower shop to come say hello to you in person.”

“Tristan. The piano guy’s name is Tristan,” Rhiannon volunteers to the napkin dispenser for no reason whatsoever. “His parents are way into opera.”

The tension is now so thick, even Stephen can't miss it. He is very intent on assembling a pyramid out of stirring stick and doughy bits of croissant. “I think your mother had the idea that she’d get a few of the neighbors to come over for dinner and stick around to welcome you home, Adam.” He’s the first to slide a glance their way, and only for a second. “Mrs. Fitzpatrick will probably bring those little chicken vol au vents you always liked.”

Adam closes his eyes and the tiniest of groans slips from his mouth. “You did.”

Sebastian’s stomach begins to make the slow trip south yet again. “Is it...a party?”

And Adam can only nod. “So it would seem.” His hand slips over Sebastian’s and squeezes. “Sorry, love. I thought we’d have a chance for a more gradual introduction and an early night in. Silly of me to imagine we'd get out of a welcome party...do you think you’re up for it?”

 _Not really_.

The empty cardboard cup crumples in Sebastian’s hand and he glances around the table at the four trepidatious Crawfords and Crawfords-to-be. He’s been drugged, flown all day, is mentally still about six hours behind the rest of the group, and now is about to face all the rest of Adam’s family somewhat ahead of schedule.

Plus an apparently saintly flower-peddling ex-boyfriend, several more teenagers, and neighbors that had never even been on the agenda in the first place.

Adam had sworn everything was going to be fine. This is Sebastian’s lesson to never again lose sight of the fact that the man he loves dearly is a pie-eyed boundless optimist with a Texas-sized capacity for overestimation.

For one wistful moment he wonders if there’s a bathroom with a sturdy lock anywhere nearby.

But just one.

Sebastian sucks in a breath. _I’ve made it this far. In for a penny…_ “I am going to need another very, very large cup of coffee - fully caffeinated - a comb, and the strongest breath mints you can get me.”

He’s mostly joking, but to his astonishment it galvanizes just about everyone into action instantly, and wow, doesn’t he just wish he could have _that_ superpower full time. It would make his Manhattan wedding photo shoots a lot easier.

“I’ve got the coffee,” Chloe volunteers, bouncing to her feet and heading for the counter.

“Smith's has mints, I think,” Stephen muses, standing up. “I’ll go see what I can find, told your mother I’d bring home the new Vogue anyway, Adam.”

Adam nods at his father and bumps Sebastian’s shoulder. “I’ve got your comb, you forgot it in the bathroom and I grabbed it. But it’s in with the toiletries way at the bottom of my suitcase.” He manages to get in a kiss and a squeeze even while he’s scrambling to his feet. “I’ll be over at that table there, it’s bigger, I can open the case right out. Back in a minute.”

Sebastian can only stare after them. “Jesus, it’s like watching an army jump into action.”

“You’re not wrong.”

And he nearly jumps out of his skin, he’s so startled.

He’d forgotten about Rhiannon.

He would have expected her to laugh at his fright, but she’s quiet, unmoving. Still curled up in her chair, coffee cup balanced on her knee while she watches him for long moments, a statue in color and curiosity.

And silence. Long, smirking, endless silence.

Finally, setting the cup aside, Rhiannon unfolds one long leg at a time and settles her booted feet down on the floor, tossing back her hair to level a steady blue stare on him until he really begins to squirm. “You’re freaking out,” she comments at last, picking up a stirring stick and beginning to chew on it.

“Actually, I’m doing my level best not to,” he says, dismantling Stephen’s straw pyramid very slowly, very carefully, and reassembling it into a cube with a few more sticks and wads of bread. “I’ll be fine.”

Her gaze doesn’t waver, and he gets the distinct impression that he’s not going to be able to bullshit Rhiannon any more than he can her brother. She tilts up her chin, cool and amused. “We won’t kill you, you know.”

Sebastian is not reassured by this at all, and since she reminds him so strongly of himself as a teenager, he’s pretty sure that was precisely her intent. He draws himself up, grasping for the old shell of cocky confidence that used to be like his second skin. It doesn’t fit quite as well as it used to, but it’s what he’s got. “I did assume your family wasn’t the murderous type, yes.”

“We’re not.” Something resembling a grin tilts up the side of her mouth that’s gnawing on the straw, and her eyes twinkle. “We’re from Essex. We’ll just make you _wish_ you were dead.”

So much for confidence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the very late night update! It is my birthday weekend, and snatching free minutes to finish up this chapter and linking up with my beta who is six hours ahead of me has been a challenge. 
> 
> Next update is, I hope, going to be on February 17th. The two week schedule is not working for me the way I wanted it to, and I would prefer to update Monday nights from now on to give myself weekends to finish up chapters. Hope this is okay!
> 
> Your feedback, as always, means more to me than I can say. It really helps keep me writing. Thank you.


	4. Our House, In The Middle Of Our Street

_Was it always this small?_

It’s his first glimpse of home in too many years, and all Adam can think is, _wasn’t it bigger?_

He’s got used to Manhattan in fifteen years of living there - used to buildings that scrape the sky and blot out the sun, to coffee shops and restaurants on every corner and a subway stop just about anywhere you look. To hustle and bustle, a life so loud it becomes background noise.

Ingatestone, in utter contrast, is quiet and green and dark at the moment, streetlights illuminating clutches of low little houses here and there as they enter the village on the High Street. _It’s a horror movie village_ , comes the thought out of nowhere, and he only barely manages to muffle his snort of laughter into his fist.

“You all right, son?” Stephen calls back over his shoulder.

“I’m fine, Dad. Sorry. Post-flight cough, you know how it is.” And Adam is very glad that it’s too dark for anyone to see his face, which has got to be beetroot. “I’ll be fine as soon as we’re in the house and I can get something to drink.”

 _And perhaps dodge the throng of neighbors, family...my ex-boyfriend_.

Ugh.

He's been brooding on this since Chloe had let the news slip. It’s not that he’s not excited to see David. No. Wait. That’s not true. He really isn’t excited. Quietly pleased, maybe. A little baffled still at the idea of David giving up nursing to come run his family’s old flower shop. But no, not excited. Adam glances across the seat of the people-carrier to watch Sebastian brooding, chin on hand while he gazes out the car window. _How could I be excited about it?_

It was cute how Sebastian thought he’d been hiding his sudden fit of jealousy at the airport.

Adam shakes his head. There’s not a whole lot he can do about the jealousy, though as ever he does wish he could fix it or prevent it from coming up in the first place. Damn Brendan. There was no need to drag David over to this party, it was sheer petty bloodyminded -

_Oh, if Brendan hadn’t done it, Mum would have called him. Let’s at least try to be a little fair to Brother Loathsome._

Not that Brendan deserves even that much as far as Adam is concerned, but he has a vested interest in keeping as much peace as possible this week. Several vested interests; Moira would be happy if her sons could get along for once, Chloe would be happy if her wedding wasn’t blighted with inter-family strife, and Adam has no desire to stoop to Brendan’s level in front of Sebastian. There’s too much at stake there.

 _Adam Crawford, resident peacekeeper and milquetoast, all in the name of family harmony._ He muffles his sigh into his palm, tries to stuff down a rising tide of resentment. _It’s not fair, keeping the peace shouldn’t be up to me managing my temper, he should grow up!_

Right. Because at the age of 35, Brendan was likely to do that _now_.

Now Adam’s looking even less forward to this whole party thing.

Rhiannon leans over the back of the seat, startling him out of his increasingly sour thought spiral. “Hey.” She folds her arms to make a pillow for her head, gazing up at him with curiosity in her eyes. “What’s up? Is it weird? Being home, I mean?”

He’s grateful for the distraction. “A little,” he says, and it’s not a lie, at least. There is definitely weirdness afoot. But he casts it aside and forces a smile for his baby sister. “The last time I was here, you’d just got braces on your teeth. You and Bex didn’t even come up to my shoulder.”

Her mouth curves into a half-smile. “It’s been that long?”

“So it would seem.” Twisting in his seat, Adam takes in the sight of her yet again. “It’s so strange to see you almost all grown up. I still remember helping Mum change your nappies, even.”

“Less of that in front of the new guy, please,” she admonishes, reaching out to sock him playfully in the arm while she points over her shoulder at Sebastian, who glances over with an uncertain smile for just a moment. “I have a reputation to uphold.”

It’s nice to have siblings he does actually like, Adam decides. “Right. So you _don’t_ still have that enormous stuffed bunny I brought over with me on my last trip.”

Rhiannon hides her growing grin in her folded arms. “I didn’t say that,” she mumbles, eyes twinkling. She shakes off the blush in her cheeks and props her chin on her hand. “I like him,” she whispers, giving Adam a little headbutt. “Rebecca’s going to die, he’s so cute. It’ll give Hayley jealous fits all week.”

“Poor Hayley,” Adam chuckles. Maybe he should get Hayley and Sebastian to hang out this week and have jealous fits together.

Hm. Probably that’s asking for trouble.

“I think I maybe scared your boy a little back at the airport, though,” Rhiannon confesses, biting her lip. “Didn’t mean to. Although honestly the look on his face was pretty hysterical when I told him we were more into torture than killing...I hope I didn’t make shit weird or anything.”

“I’m sure he’s fine, whatever you said,” Adam says, not entirely sure of the truth of that. Sebastian’s hardly said a word to anyone but Chloe on the drive back. “Tired and nervous. He knows what a joke is, Rhi, I swear he does. It…” He glances at Sebastian again, sitting as tense and stiff as a poker, looking very much like someone who wouldn’t mind melting into the car upholstery. “It just might take him a few hours to get the joke right now.”

Not that they have a few hours. “Here we are!” Chloe turns in her seat, bouncing and clapping in unbridled excitement while Stephen steers into the drive alongside the big white house of Adam’s youth. “Ahhhh, so exciting, wait till you see -”

“Mum made us paint up welcome banners for you guys,” Rhiannon says, sitting upright. “I got the rest of the art club to help out, so they actually look pretty decent.”

“And I’m sure Rebecca and Hayley and Tristan are still playing -” Chloe pops open her door and swings down to the ground, tilting her head to listen. A smile spreads across her face. “It’s my processional, they’re practicing my processional! Come on!” Yanking the back door open, she grabs Sebastian’s arm and pulls him right out. “You have to hear this, they’re so good, you’ll love it, do you like Haydn? They’re so amazing…” Her voice fades out as she leads him around to the back of the van to retrieve their bags.

Adam hops down, Rhiannon close behind him. “I’ll get your bags,” she tells him, flinging an arm over his shoulder. “Go on in.”

He glances at her. “You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah, go on in, get the fuss over with.” She grins wide. “Everyone’s really excited to see you. Even Tim cracked a smile. And I will tell you now, that doesn’t happen a whole lot lately.”

“It ever did?” He manages a laugh to temper the sharpness. “All right. I’m going.”

Yes. It’s _definitely_ nice to have at least one sibling he likes.

But now is the time to face the music. Adam draws back his shoulders and hurries his steps down the little pathway to the front door. The door - dark glossy navy blue, mounted with a shiny brass knocker, just as it has been as long as he can think back to remember - is cracked open already, just a bit, enough to let the sweet strains of Rebecca’s cello stream out into the night. The mellow drone is cushioned by light piano and augmented with the decorative silver trills of an expertly played flute.

Adam slips through the door and presses himself into the shadows of the foyer, peering through the doorway leading into the front room to see if he can find the rest of his family before they find him. And - success, he spots his mother first, shock of short dark curls haloing her never-aging face, eyes bright as she watches Rebecca and her friends play. She sways a little with the music, a peaceful smile curving her mouth.

Rebecca is easily spotted next, near clone of Rhiannon that she is, not to mention the cello being a dead giveaway. Head bent, she is intent on the music stand before her and looking for all the world like the antithesis of her twin. Her hair is neatly drawn back, her jeans unripped, her jumper pink and her earrings actual tiny pearl studs - night and day next to Rhiannon’s Doc Martens and plaid flannel and jelly bracelets.

Next to Rebecca is a small, round girl with a nimbus of blonde waves glowing in the low light of the lamps, silver flute shining - that’s got to be Hayley, and the earnest, thin, dark-skinned boy at the piano is obviously Tristan. They’re playing brilliantly, as good as any classical musicians he’s heard in New York City, and Adam can’t help but feel a flush of pride at it. _That’s my own sister!_

He glances around some more. Brendan and Timothy stand behind Moira, one bored and the other expressionless as they listen. No change there. Shifting his gaze away, Adam spots two dozen neighbors he hasn’t said boo to in years, and then there’s David in the back corner, good looking as ever in a way that makes Adam strangely nervous. He’s standing in front of a “Welcome Home, Adam and Sebastian” banner that, huh, really does look nicely done and Adam will have to thank Rhiannon for it later. It almost distracts from David’s nervous, darting eyes and general faux-casual demeanor.

He does look really good though.

 _Why am I even_ thinking _about that?!_

Right. Adam is so not ready to go into that room, not yet.

A soft whine sounds down around his ankles, and he crouches down to see the family Welsh Springer at his feet, snuffling at his socks. “Newton!” he whispers, ruffling the spaniel’s floppy ears. “How are you, boy? You remember me?”

His friendly pets are greeted with a sharp bark and Newton bouncing up to lick his face before barking again in delight. “Shh, shh boy, come on, they’ll -”

The music cuts off with a screech, Moira’s voice rising above the sudden cloud of murmurs that sprang up. “Hello? Who’s there, please? Show yourself!”

 _Ready or not_.

He gets to his feet, brushing red and white fur off the front of his jumper. “Um. Hello. Sorry, Mum, it’s just -”

“Adam!” Rebecca’s shriek fills the room and he has about ten seconds to register her hurling her cello aside towards the little blonde flutist. She bolts across the family room in a blur, jumping at the last minute to wrap herself entirely around him and squeeze him tight. He’s barely able to grab hold of her and keep them both from crashing to the floor. “Adamadamadamadamadam!”

“Hey there, Bex.” It’s hard to get the greeting out between his laughter and her stranglehold around his neck. “Jesus.”

“Sorry.” She climbs down with a bounce and hugs him right around the ribs instead. “I’m just so happy to see you!”

“I’m happy to see you, too.” He still can’t breathe very well, she’s got him held so tight, but it doesn’t matter. He does try to pull back to get a good look at her, though. “God, and I thought Rhiannon looked all grown up. You’re not allowed to become an adult, do you hear me? I was just feeding you mashed peas yesterday!”

“Oh, do shut up.” She lets him go and backs up to look him over, bouncing on her toes. “You’re here! I can’t believe you’re here finally, why didn’t you say anything coming in the door? Where’s everyone else?”

“We’re here as well.” Stephen pushes through the door with Adam’s carry-on in one hand and a suitcase in the other, Rhiannon and Chloe similarly laden behind him. “Get this stuff to your mother’s study, will you, my girls?”

“On it.” The twins disappear into the crowd of neighbors suddenly blocking up the entryway into the family room, occasional squeals of pain marking their progress as Rhiannon makes no effort to prevent a heavy case from rolling over some hapless neighbor’s foot.

Moira’s pushed her way to the front of the scrum, standing before him with a scowl of what he hopes is _mock_ annoyance on her face. “Well, and that’s a fine greeting for your mother, isn’t it? Sneaking in through the door like some kind of thief in the night and not a single hello for me, is that the way of it? And I was in labor with you for a full day, I’ll have you know, Adam Elliott Crawford, and if this is how you’re going to treat me -”

“God, I missed you, Mum.” Adam grabs his mother up in his arms, taking in the smell and feel and sound of her all at once for the first time in far, far too long, and he’s got her held as tight as Rebecca had him, and he doesn’t want to let go. He has to close his eyes to hold back the needle sharp tears he refuses to shed in front of everyone else. “I’m so happy to see you. It’s so _good_. Oh, Mum.”

“Ah, Adam, it’s grand to see you, my darling boy.” All sarcasm and irritation is gone far, far away from Moira’s voice. “It’s always too long between times that I can cast my eyes on you, love. Let me have a look at you.” She stands back and gives him a good once-over. “Tall, strong and handsome, just like your brothers. I did raise me a good crop of boys.” Cocking her head to the side, she surveys him again. “Love clearly does you good, my boy. Now, where’s this Sebastian of yours? I’m almost more excited to meet him than I was to see you!”

With a laugh, Adam glances around, only to frown in worry when he doesn’t see Sebastian behind him as he’d expected. “I...didn’t he follow everyone in?”

“No.” The front door swings slowly open and, oh, there Sebastian is, standing in the doorway taking deep breaths. “Sorry, I needed a minute.” His smile is crooked and a little forced, and Adam can see that his nerves are all a-bristle.

Slowly, Adam reaches out to take Sebastian’s arm and guide him inside, but he’s beaten to it by Moira, who isn’t nearly as slow or careful. She bombs it right over and has Sebastian seized in a hug and yanked into the house before either of them totally know what’s going on. “Ooh, look at you, if circumstances were very different all around, I think you and I would be having a nice long talk in a cozy dark room, you lovely fellow, you.” Her wink is salacious and her giggle bright. “You’re even more good looking in person than on the computer! And so _tall_.”

Sebastian has time to cast one startled glance over his shoulder at Adam before Moira’s pulling him into the center of the crowd of neighbors and has started the introductions. “Everyone, this is Adam’s partner Sebastian, isn’t he lovely? Let’s give him a good welcome!”

And that is the last Adam sees of his boyfriend. _Gah_.

“Well. Mum hasn’t scared him off first thing, that’s probably a good sign.”

Adam jerks his head up at the unexpected voice. He’d thought everyone had followed Moira and Sebastian into the living room and that he was alone again with Newton in the foyer. But no. A glance around and down reveals Timothy crouched next to him, scratching behind Newton’s ears. “Tim.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” And for a wonder, his brother’s apology actually sounds sincere - but then, Tim’s worst crimes had only ever been to go along with Brendan’s mocking and jeering. When it was just him and Adam, civility hadn’t been so far a stretch. “Good trip over?”

“It was all right. We survived it, anyway.” He shoves his hands into his pockets, hoping Tim can’t see his frown. Were they going to have to make small talk? What in the world could they talk about? Adam rummages through his memories for anything at all. “How’s teaching going?”

“Eh, you know, all right, got its ups and downs.” Timothy shrugs. “It’s not bad. Kind of strange working with Dad, but at least the twins are done with Biology and I don’t have them again. That was an interesting year.”

With the glimpse Adam’s just had of their sisters, he’s sure that’s the truest thing anyone’s ever said. “God, I bet. Did they try to switch places on you?”

“No. They spared me that. Well, I think. I never was the best at telling them apart when they made the effort.” In the dim light, Adam can’t quite be sure if he’s seeing Tim quirk a smile or not. “For all I know, I had Becca all year, twice a day. God, I’d never thought about it.”

“Best not to linger,” Adam advises. “What’s past is past, right?”

The irony of the statement does not escape him.

Fortunately, it seems to fly right over Tim’s head. “I suppose. I gave _someone_ a lot of excellent passing grades, anyway.” Timothy gets to his feet, placing his hands on his back as he stretches. “How’s the bakery?”

Adam can’t take his eyes off of his brother - there’s a part of him that can’t stop thinking that Tim is delaying him to make time for Brendan to pull some prank. But Brendan’s deep in the family room with Chloe, talking to David and some girl Adam vaguely remembers from school that he thinks Chloe might have made a bridesmaid. So whatever else is going on, this conversation is a real one. “Ah, it’s good, you know, we’re doing well. Busy as hell in the summer months, and we had a fair few extra surprise fall weddings pop up as well. I had to give up an off-Broadway role because I just couldn’t spare the time for rehearsals, we got so much traffic.”

“That’s too bad. Mum showed us your last reviews from that one you did last year - _Earnest_? They said good things about you.”

Seriously. This has to be a trap of some kind. “Really? You read that?”

“She showed us that magazine your boyfriend was in, too.” Tim tips his chin in a point to indicate where Sebastian is standing with Moira and Mrs. Fitzpatrick over near the piano. “What was the article for? ‘Up and Coming New York Talents’, I think it said. He does photography, doesn’t he?”

“Yes…” Adam is about to pass out from shock. He’d sent Moira the copy of _floodlights_ months ago, right after the wedding invitation had arrived. It’s not much of a surprise that Moira made everyone look at the article and photo spread that had included poor Sebastian looking slightly ill at ease to be the one in _front_ of the camera - she’d adopted him as a fourth son nearly as soon as she’d learned of his existence, and Crawford children got paraded around in maternal pride whether they liked it or not. But it is a surprise that Timothy has not only seen it, but remembered it, found it interesting enough to remark on it. “He opened his studio almost a year ago.”

“Good on him. On both of you. Making your own ways and all.” Tim’s nod is brotherly in a way Adam doesn’t remember ever, ever seeing. But he’s distracted as well, his gaze looking into the family room, but not at anyone in it. “Something to be proud of.”

“Right.” Adam has no idea where this conversation came from or where it’s going, and he’s about to reach the end of his ability to even try and understand.

The twins pop right back up in front of them in a perfectly timed and badly needed moment of distraction. “Party poopers. You can’t just lurk in the foyer,” Rebecca scolds, shaking her head.

“Yeah, Adam, this is your party, you can’t dodge it.” Rhiannon drops a wink. “Not that I don’t _completely_ understand the urge.”

Rebecca reaches for Tim. “Come on, big brother, someone brought an actual chocolate fountain thing, there’s all kinds of stuff you can dip in it. I think Chloe wants to try to borrow it for...for the...wedding...” Her voice falters and drops off, pretty face all over guilt as Tim’s expression darkens.

“Sorry.” Quick as lightning, Tim’s closed off and turning away. "Got to go. Tests to mark." And he's gone, escaping the foyer without so much as a goodbye before his footsteps clomp up the stairs to the second floor. Adam watches him go, still off balance from having a prolonged decent conversation with one of his brothers, still startled at how quickly Tim’s mood had gone from mild amusement and civility to bitter darkness.

Rebecca rolls her eyes to the ceiling. "He's even more broody Mr. Darcy than usual. Barely said a word on the way back from picking up Hayley and Tristan earlier! Honestly, I don't know why he bothers to drive us all 'round, he certainly doesn't enjoy it." Her face falls. “I shouldn’t have brought up the wedding, though.”

Adam’s still looking after where Timothy’s disappeared up the stairs. “Is he staying here, too?”

“Mmhm. He moved out of Bren and Cee’s place a couple months ago.” Rebecca twists a finger through a stray curl, mouth drooping sadly. “He said he wanted to give them space, but I think the wedding planning got to be too much for him.”

“It would be a lot for anyone to be around, wouldn’t it? Chloe talks about nothing but.” He doesn’t at all see why it would drive Tim back to living with their parents, good lord.

Rhiannon snorts with what could almost be contempt, but Adam can tell her heart isn’t really into it. "Because it must be tough having to watch your brother get married the same week that would have been your wedding, I guess." She glances hard at Adam. "Not a word to Mum and Dad. They don't know what Tim was planning before he and Carys split up."

 _Ouch. Right. Poor Tim_. He’d almost forgotten about the whole drama with Tim abruptly leaving his entire life in Wales behind two years ago. And he’d never known about the planned wedding between Tim and his long-time girlfriend. “I didn’t know about that. How do _you_ know?" Adam asks, arching an eyebrow. As if he can’t guess. He would be unsurprised to find that the only people in the world who could outstrip Kurt Hummel in snooping skills are his little sisters. _Poor Tim, again, I suppose_. In the light of everything the last thirty minutes have been, it’s somewhat less odd to feel sympathy for one of his brothers than he might have imagined before.

The twins smile sweetly, arms linked. "Never you mind," Rebecca says, blue eyes bright.

"We just have our ways." Rhiannon winks, and there's something quite sly about her gaze when she turns it on to Adam. "Do _you_ have any secrets, Adam?"

Adam is not entirely sure he likes that knowing look, or the way their focus has shifted from Timothy to him. “No,” he lies, short and firm, but it does nothing to make Rhiannon - and now Rebecca - stop smirking at him. And making him distinctly uncomfortable, especially when he remembers that they’re the ones who were just handling his luggage...

 _Probably best to escape._ And eat - dinner service on the flight was much too long ago. And find Sebastian, because they’ve been separated far too long now and maybe Timothy’s suddenly behaving like a civilized human being for the most part, but Adam isn’t about to think that Brendan is capable of the same. He doesn’t want Sebastian to encounter Brendan alone if he can help it. _I’ll get food_ , he decides. _Bring him a plate, maybe._ Find some kind of island of normality in an evening that’s already gone quite abruptly pear-shaped.

It’s a good plan. He makes himself smile in the faces of his too-clever little sisters and slinks past them into the family room.

Where he very literally runs right smack into David and a cup of hot chocolate. “Ouch!”

“Sorry. Sorry, Adam. Shit!” David’s mouth is open with horror, red creeping up his face from his neck. “I...I...I did-didn’t see you there, I didn’t mean to -” He yanks a fistful of paper serviettes out of the hand of a passing random neighbor Adam doesn’t quite recognize, ignoring the man’s protests as he sets to dabbing at the chocolate spreading across the front of Adam’s jumper. “Fuck. I’m so sorry.”

 _He looks good_. God only knows why that’s the first thing to come to mind when his ex-boyfriend is frantically patting at his chest, but there it is. _Can this night get any more bizarre and awkward? No, Adam, don’t invite trouble._ “Don’t worry about it.” The last thing Adam needs is for Sebastian to look over and see him being patted down by someone Sebastian doesn’t know. “Seriously.”

But David keeps blotting at the chocolate, trying in vain to keep it from soaking further into the gray wool. “No, I insist, this wasn’t how I wanted to say hello to you for the first time in so long.” A tiny frown creases David’s brow right over his nose, a tiny frown Adam’s seen so many times when David was trying to work out a particularly trying bit of schoolwork, or when he was arranging flowers after school, or when he was deciding whether or not to lean forward and kiss Adam -

With a start, Adam pushes David back, blood rushing to his cheeks at the surprise of _that_ memory deciding to surface. “Honestly, David, it’s fine.” The awareness that he’s got his hands on David hits him all at once and makes him burn hotter with flustered embarrassment and he jerks away. “It’s fine, I’ll have Mum clean it. Or I will. It will get cleaned. Don’t worry about it.”

“No, I really should -”

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter -”

“I feel just terrible -” David stops and shakes his head, lips pressed tight in a line, dark eyes narrow. “Adam. Can we start this over? Please? We are going to English ourselves right into the ground if we keep this up.”

Laughter drains away at least some of the embarrassment and awkwardness. “Yes. Yes, I think we can,” Adam says, snatching the serviettes away and blotting at the chocolate himself. “Hello, David, how have you been?”

“I have been fine, and I’m sorry to tell you I was just leaving.” The old rueful smile on David’s face, that’s just as familiar as the frown, but stirs up less blushworthy memories than his act of rumpling his already tousled brown hair up with a shaking hand. Adam tears his eyes away from staring as David goes on. “Mum was too tired to come tonight, and I don’t like leaving her on her own too long. But I was hoping to run into you and say hello. Not literally run into you, of course.”

“Of course.” The pullover is a lost cause for now. He’s going to have to pop it in to soak tonight if he wants any chance of actually getting it clean. He tugs it over his head and tosses it onto the piano bench. “I’m sorry you’re leaving. I’d hoped to have a chance to catch up.” _And look at you some more oh my sweet lord what is wrong with me?_

“Come to the shop tomorrow if you can?” David offers. “Bring your fellow. I got to meet him a bit ago, he’s quite nice, isn’t he?”

“He’s incredible,” Adam says, wondering a bit if he might be protesting just a little much. “We’re very happy.”

David raises an eyebrow, his smile touched with some confusion. “Yes, I’m...sure you are.”

“I…” Oh, and Adam’s just brought all the awkwardness back, well done.

“I’m going to go home now,” David says, slowly and looking like he’s trying not to laugh. “I’m quite happy to have seen you and I’ll look forward to seeing you - and Sebastian - tomorrow, perhaps?”

And before Adam can get out anything that just digs his hole deeper into the ground, David smiles and waves and then he’s gone.

 _I have no idea what that was all about and I might be an idiot_.

And he’s _still_ hungry. “Food,” he says aloud, ignoring the startled glances this earns him. “Food is good. Food keeps me from talking.”

Still a good plan.

He’s just picking up one of Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s vol au vents when Chloe pops up next to him. “Ooh, bacon wrapped prawns, excellent. I wondered if they were going to be able to get Mrs. Alconbury to make them.” Grabbing up a paper plate, she loads it up with nothing but prawns and commences to all but inhale them. “God, that’s good.”

Adam looks down at his own sparsely inhabited plate with its miniscule array of gherkins, boiled egg slices, and the chicken-stuffed pastries. “Trust me when I say I’m not passing judgment,” he begins, feeling slightly inadequate and picking out two sausage rolls to make up for it, “but I thought the customary - if vile and ridiculous - tradition was for brides to eat nothing but lettuce leaves and the occasional half a cracker before their wedding?”

“Oh, to hell with that,” Chloe scoffs around a mouthful of bacon. “No, no, no wedding dieting, no. I’ve just been running around in dungarees and Brendan’s rugby shirts for the last two months, so when I show up at my wedding wearing something that’s properly fitted, it’ll look like I’ve lost half a stone but I didn’t have to do anything!" She pops another prawn into her mouth and chews for a bit, face thoughtful. "Mind you, I know that gossipy cow Melinda McPherson has been spreading around that I'm pregnant, but whatever. She drank so many wheatgrass smoothies before her wedding, her dress was a tent! Anyway, are you having fun?"

"Ah..." Nibbling at a roll, Adam cranes his neck, looking around for Sebastian in the tight crush of people. He’d forgotten to worry about him for a moment. _Just to make sure he’s still all right..._

A hard poking finger right in the soft bit of his stomach yanks his attention right back to Chloe. "Stop worrying so much," she admonishes, punctuating every other word with another sharp jab. "He's doing fine."

But Adam can't help it. He looks around until he spots Sebastian now standing with his mother, nodding and smiling while she hands him a never ending stream of hors d'oeuvres. "Oh, Mum's feeding him." That’ll be one thing he doesn’t have to worry about, then. Not that it does much to alleviate the weight of his concern.

"See? Fine. He even talked to David and they got along really well." Twining her fingers in with his, she tugs at his arm until he smiles. "Sebastian is great. I like him, Adam. I really do. And I think he'll survive this week just fine so _relax_ , will you?"

He glances around the room, nerves shot. "I can't.”

“Adam -”

“No. I can’t.” It’s too much, this night, the strangeness of Tim and the awkward moment with David and all of his worry about Sebastian and _why_ he’s worried about Sebastian, the secret Adam’s been keeping that’s had him on edge all day, well, for months if he’s being honest, and that’s it, that is _it,_ he has to tell someone. And also get out of this room for a moment, but mostly he has to tell someone. “Here, come with me -" He pulls her through the crowd, nodding and waving at neighbors and old school friends until they break free into the hallway and he can drag Chloe into his mother's study.

“Adam, what are we doing in here?” She’s laughing, but uncertainly. “Are you all right? What’s going on?”

Dropping Chloe's hand, he makes a beeline for his carry-on and hoists it up onto a chair. "I'm going to show you something," he says, keeping an eye on his oldest friend while he rummages through his bag by touch. "You cannot squeal, or shriek, or do anything that will bring anyone in here, and you can't tell anyone about this. Not even Brendan." His hand finds and closes around the little velveteen box that's been hidden in this bag for ages, and his stomach churns with nerves. "Actually, especially not Brendan."

Chloe's eyes are as big as saucers. "Okay."

The edges of the box bite into his fingers when his hand squeezes around it. "Seriously, Cee. You have to promise. Swear on your life."

"Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye." A broad grin spreads across her face as she recites the childish vow, holding her hand up. "Scout's honor?"

"All right. No one, do you understand? Not a single person." Withdrawing his hand from the bag, he crosses the office rug and places the box in her hand, curling her fingers around it. "Not one word. Not a sound."

"All right, all right already." Her ponytail bounces as she shakes her head, still laughing a bit at him, he knows, but soon enough she’d see and understand.

When she pries the little box open and spots the vintage brushed gold band inside, Chloe's hand flies up to cover her mouth, cutting off the gasp that had begun to slip loose. If her eyes were saucer-large before, they're dinner plates now, wide, shining and full of questions. "Mmmph!"

The muffled, wordless shriek would have punctured his eardrums if he hadn't forewarned her, he knows. Adam nearly loses it laughing as Chloe squeaks and bounces in place, hair flying everywhere and the squeaking growing ever more high pitched through the barrier of her hand. "Oh my god oh my god oh my god," she whisper-shrieks at last, uncovering her mouth so she can flap her free hand. "Adam! Oh my god!"

"Nothing, not a hint or a whisper or even so much as a peep to anyone," he reminds her, taking the box back and tucking it safely away while Chloe Snoopy-dances around the office. "Cee, I mean it!"

She stops in her tracks and rolls her eyes. "I know, Adam. I heard you." Her eyes squeeze shut as she does another little jig in place, bouncing and flapping her hands. "Oh my god! When are you going to ask?"

The question stills his hand as he's zipping the bag back up, and Adam sighs. "I don't know."

Chloe’s jaw drops. "What! Come on, you have to have an idea, a plan, something, right?"

"I _did_ have a plan.” And it had been a good one, too. He’s still wistful about it. “Our anniversary was in August. I was going to then."

"Okay.” Her shoulder tips up in a shrug. “So why didn't you?"

"Because you sent your wedding invitation in June," Adam replies, feeling his cheeks burn and returning his attention to closing the bag to hide it. "That’s not your fault. It’s just...he was already plenty wound up about that, I wasn't going to add on, 'hey, why don't I bring you to meet my family for the first time...as my fiancé?' Too much pressure."

"Hm. For him or for you?" Chloe's face is shrewd, and she's seeing right through him.

"For me," he admits, thinking about everything that could have gone wrong - mostly with Brendan - if he had done exactly that. "And of course I didn't want to steal any thunder from you. Which is why I am also not planning to ask him this week."

"It is true that I would kill you," she informs him, nodding cheerfully. "Why bring the ring, then?"

"I had to. If I left it at home, the friends I have dog sitting would find it. Kurt is an inveterate snoop and I would never hear the end of it." He tangles a hand into his hair, shaking his head. "But I really do want to ask him soon. I'm just terrified that if this week is too awful or stressful that he'll decide I'm not worth the effort. That's why I'm..."

"Hovering?" Chloe tilts her head to the side, blowing out a breath to flip back a curl that flops into her eyes. "Being an over-protective helicopter boyfriend in a doomed effort to make sure everything goes absolutely perfectly and he doesn’t run screaming?” She snorts. “Right, I'm not sure Sebastian is the one who needs watching over."

Adam opens his mouth to reply but - "I don't know about that." Rhiannon's voice from the doorway catches them both by surprise. "Brendan just got hold of him while you two were back here gossiping."

That’s enough to make Adam start to bolt from the room, but Chloe snags a handful of his shirt to stop him. "Wait." She tilts her chin at Rhiannon. "How long were you there? How much did you hear?"

Rhiannon rolls her eyes. "Bex and I already found the ring when we dumped the bags in here, so I knew before you did anyway. Don't worry, we're not gonna tell anyone. There's more value in keeping a secret than blabbing it everywhere."

Which explains the twins’ sly knowing smirks from earlier, Adam realizes. "Value? Fine. I'll untangle fairy lights for you or bake you cookies or whatever - I'm not buying you cigarettes or alcohol or drugs though, if you’re into that, so don’t even try." He yanks at his shirt, glaring over his shoulder at Chloe. "Can I please go rescue my boyfriend from my brother now?"

"Better let him go, Cee," Rhiannon drawls, inspecting her fingernails. "Brendan opened the conversation with, 'God, you're a long streak of piss, eh?' and given that he's had four Stellas and a double whiskey, I'm thinking it'll just go downhill from there."

Chloe goes stark white and her fingers come loose to allow the t-shirt to spring back against Adam's side. "Oh, God, who let him into the liquor cabinet?” Off she goes, whipping out of the study in a streak of blonde hair and high panic.

And here it is. The moment Adam has been dreading.

With effort, he follows Chloe at a much more leisurely pace. _Keep your head, Crawford_. His best trick for handling Brendan has always been to never let on that whatever is happening is getting to him. As much as he wants to rush in and drag Sebastian out and away from whatever Brendan is saying, that would just let them both in for a week of aggravation.

And all Adam wants to do is see his best friend married to the worst of his siblings, and then go home, feathers unruffled and his nebulous plans unshaken.

 _What a hell of a night._ And it feels miles away from being over.

“Y’r gonna come and play tomorrow,” Brendan’s slurring at Sebastian when Adam arrives in the front room and winds his way through to stand at his boyfriend’s side. “Do a game every afternoon, five a side.”

Sebastian’s face is the bland mask he puts on for shrill, impatient mothers of brides at the studio during pricing negotiations. Adam knows it well. His tone, too, is cool to match. “Yeah, I don’t know if there’s going to be time for that, but thank you for the invitation.”

“We _make_ time, Beanstalk.” Belligerence and alcohol combine to make the heavy Glasgow influence in Brendan’s voice lean hard towards being incomprehensible. “C’mon, mate, whatsit, you know how to play football, everyone’s got to know that, even you Americans - y’afraid of playing a game without padding?” He shakes Chloe’s tugging hand from his arm and leans in to focus on Sebastian’s face. “Or’re you like Adam, y’don’t do _real_ sports?”

“Swimming is a real sport, last I checked,” Sebastian replies, still bland and smooth and cool and bored, though Adam can feel irritation fairly radiating off of him like quills on an agitated porcupine. “And no, I have no problem with sports that don’t use a lot of padding. I played lacrosse for a long time.”

“Lacrosse?” Brendan barks out something that’s half-laugh and half-belch, making Sebastian flinch back, Chloe roll her eyes, and Moira look like she’s going to murder him, given half a chance. “With th’ ball and the little stick? S’hockey for girls here, right, do you look cute in a little skirt - ow!”

Chloe’s reached up and has Brendan’s ear in a grip that’s making his face turn red. Adam has to glance down and press his lips together so he doesn’t laugh right out loud. “That’s it. We’re going home,” she informs Brendan in a hiss, yanking at the ear so that he has to crouch down to follow it or risk Chloe possibly pulling it off. “You’re being an idiot again, and rude to your brother’s guest.”

“Ow, Cee, nah, I just - ow! - s’just fun, I’m no meaning - let go!”

Chloe smiles up at Adam and ignores her fiancé. “Welcome home, Adam. I think I’d better get this one into bed.” With her free arm, she reaches over to hug Sebastian. “Lovely to meet you. Why don’t I call for you tomorrow, we’ll go out to the farm?”

Sebastian’s mask melts away into a genuinely pleased smile. “Sure, I’d like that. I’ll bring my camera?”

“Love it.” She gives Adam a hug as well. “And you and I will do some baking on Tuesday?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for worlds,” he tells her, hoping fervently that Brendan won’t be around.

And Chloe reads his mind, as ever. “He will absolutely not be around,” she whispers, kissing his cheek. “Who do you think made the time in his schedule for the five a sides? It keeps him out from under your mother’s feet and mine.”

“Clever girl,” he whispers back. “See you tomorrow when you come by, then.”

“See you then.” Still dragging Brendan by the ear, Chloe makes the rounds to say goodbye to everyone before vanishing out the door, Brendan protesting in a grumble behind her all the way out to the truck.

As soon as the front door clicks shut behind them, Adam is done. It’s too much. Exhaustion hits him like a ton of bricks, and no surprise - the clock on the mantel shows that it's well past midnight, and while that means it's still only just after 7 PM in New York, he's done in. Flights, worry, the discussion in the study, Brendan...he’s amazed he’s still standing, really.

"I think that's enough for us," he tells his mother, being sure to smile politely and put a good face on the fact that he’s dead on his feet. "It's been one hell of a day, Mum. I'd really like to sleep, and Sebastian was tired when we got here." A sidelong glance at his partner shows that the mask is utterly gone now, and he looks quite as exhausted as Adam. “We should probably go on up, I’m sorry.”

"That's all right, love, I think Brendan was the last excitement any of us could take." Moira stretches up to kiss his cheek. "And look, Mrs. Fitzpatrick's already asleep -" Much to Adam's amusement, this is actually true, the blue haired biddy all curled up in Stephen's big reading chair. " - I think everyone else will find a patch on the floor if I don't chivvy them out as well! I'd say we're all done for the night. Go on, your room is all clean and ready for you, and I’ll do a breakfast in the morning and we’ll catch up then."

"Sounds excellent," he says, nearly ready to curl up on the carpet himself. He takes Sebastian’s hand and gives it a tug. “Darling?”

Sebastian snaps to attention, blinking glazed over green eyes. Clearly his night has been no easier. "Bed?"

"Bed," Adam replies firmly, taking his arm and drawing him close. "Sleep. Though we'll have to drag our bags up to the loft, I'm sorry."

"If there's a bed at the end of it, I'd drag a sofa up the stairs by myself." For all that it's blurred with exhaustion, Sebastian's rejoinder is fervent and sincere. After a hug from Moira, he follows along behind Adam without a word of fuss, gathering up his bags and trudging up the stairs, their footsteps the only sound between them besides the all but audible ticking over of Sebastian’s thoughts. Adam wonders what he’s thinking, but at the same time rather fears it.

They're coming up on the last flight up steps up to Adam's old bedroom when he finds out, and yes, he was right to fear it. "So…” Sebastian begins, hesitation clear. “You and your brothers don’t really get along?”

It’s a question Adam had actually expected months ago, as soon as he'd accidentally let slip that he had any concerns about Brendan and Timothy. But caught up in his worries as Sebastian had been, it had never come, and Adam had at some point stopped anticipating the day it would be asked. The surprise of it coming _now_ stops his feet dead on the stairs and the answer he'd carefully composed months ago vanishes quite entirely from his thoughts. "Eh?"

"Your brothers. You don't seem to like them. You’ve been worried about them being dicks to me for months." Tired as he unmistakably is, Sebastian doesn't complain about stopping just short of their destination, hands resting on the handle of his suitcase as he watches Adam with curiosity. "I mean, Brendan didn't make the best first impression on me, but he's not a whole lot worse than any frat guy I went to college with. I didn’t get to meet Timothy. I saw him, though, he just looked cranky.” He tilts his head, concern wrinkling his brow. “But I know you. I know you don’t dislike people without a fucking good reason, so what were you worried about, Adam?"

"Right..." It's difficult to put into words now that it's truth time. There’s always been that slight niggling worry in the back of his mind that maybe he's too overly paranoid about his brothers. Maybe he was just too sensitive to their raucous teasing, maybe he should have developed a thicker skin growing up. The part of him that had always looked up to his older brothers and desperately sought their approval has always raised these doubts.

But the part of him that had endured teasing and being left behind, the resentful teenager who'd so often come home from school to find his room ransacked and belongings hidden or stolen for ransom - that part always chimes in to counter that maybe he was right and they had simply been awful. Well, Brendan had, anyway.

Oh, he’s so tired.

"To be very fair," he begins, sitting down on the step he's on, "I will tell you to start that Timothy isn't really so bad most of the time, except that he's Brendan's yes man and sycophant. They're only ten months apart, you see, they were born while Dad was at Uni in Glasgow."

Sebastian shoves his suitcase aside and sits at Adam's feet. "So they're close."

"Very close. Best of friends nearly from the cradle. Which,” Adam sighs, “at least as far as Brendan is concerned, is the start of the problem. He was always a bit jealous of the new baby taking up Mum's attention, from what she says, and Tim decided after a while that he was jealous too."

"Okay." Sebastian nods, scooting up the steps until they're sitting level and facing each other. "So they were kind of jerks about you from the beginning."

"Well, in as much as toddlers are. Actually they mostly ignored me until I started school." Walking to and from school exactly fifteen steps behind them. Having his lunches raided for snack. Being flatly ignored by Brendan when he’d dared to try to speak to him in front of Brendan's school chums. He could recite a litany of offenses as long as the street he lives on, and they all still sting, even almost three decades later. _We’re supposed to be past all of this, aren’t we? Shouldn’t I be, at least?_

Moira had tried her best to get the older boys to accept their younger sibling, she really had. But boys will do as boys choose, and Brendan had chosen to shut Adam out, with Tim following his example. Then they had both resented the attention Moira gave him to make up for his being so lonely.

It was a vicious cycle.

Explaining all of this to Sebastian is more draining than it had been when he'd explained it to their therapist months ago. There's that little voice in the background he has to ignore, the one that’s always wondered what was so wrong with him that his own brothers didn't like him.

"I guess...I guess in the end it boils down to me being not like them,” he concludes, slumped over with his elbows on his knees and no energy left to speak of. “I'm not close enough in age, don't share the bond of being born in Scotland, never got any joy from getting into fistfights, never liked Scouting and rugby and football and all the things they liked." His back is aching from sitting on the stairs, and it cracks as he stretches. "And they never liked competitive swimming, or dramatics, or even the same music I did. It's not that we hate each other, it's just...we literally have nothing in common except that we're brothers, and that just never was enough, I suppose. For Brendan, at least. Tim, as I say, is just...a follower." _And maybe less of one now, I don’t know_. Such a long night.

"Well, and the fact that they’re actual assholes and you aren’t, and if it’s _me_ saying they’re assholes...Christ, it's so dumb," Sebastian says, face twisted into a scowl. “I was bored growing up as an only kid, but I think I totally got the better end of the deal."

"It could have been worse," Adam replies, tired and drained. "I mean, the one thing they gave me a pass on is being gay. They never said a word about it, and I admit to a certain gratitude that they left that alone."

"Hooray, basic human decency at a microcellular level." Sebastian looks like he just sucked on a lemon. "Brendan does not even deserve Chloe. What the hell does she see in him?"

"She's always adored him." Adam shrugs. "I don't really get it either. I assume there must be some redeeming characteristic, you know, apart from the fact I know he's not the domestic violence sort and he's never been prone to infidelity. I mean, he is funny, good looking, loyal, and kind to everyone apart from me. So...that's something."

"Whatever." It's clearly not enough for Sebastian, who in his surprising righteous fury has at last apparently regained all the aplomb he’d lost when the wedding invitation had hit their doormat. "They’re not worth it.” He shakes his head. “They don't matter. We just have to get through this week without punching them, right? That ought to be easy enough."

Adam isn't so sure. "Really?" Not that he would really hit his brothers, but the temptation, he suspects, is going to be fierce.

"Well, Brendan at least. You did say Timothy was all right on his own, mostly." Tugging at his ear, Sebastian looks thoughtful. "Remind me to find Kurt a really nice present while we're here."

The non sequitur throws Adam for a loop. "Pardon?"

"Brendan made me uncomfortably aware of just how shitty I was to Kurt in high school with all the gross sexist crap I dished out to him, and it turns out I _definitely_ have never apologized enough for it," Sebastian explains, shaking his head. "That's all."

They sit together, shoulder to shoulder in companionable silence. Sebastian picks up Adam’s hand and clasps it in both of his, long fingers slipping in between Adam’s fingers and twining them together, and his thoughts are loud again. As Adam is about to ask, Sebastian clears his throat and speaks. “Um. So. David seems nice.”

Adam chokes on a hysterical laugh, turning it into a cough. “Er. He is. Yes. Nice. Very nice. Did you like him? He said you were nice, too.”

Sebastian stares at him for a moment, and there has never been a stretch of time when he’s more obviously questioned Adam’s sanity. “Are you okay?”

 _Nnnnnnooope_. Adam has no more energy for this conversation. For this _day._ He leans hard on Sebastian’s shoulder and sighs. "Just tired. Let's adjourn to bed, please. We don't have to really unpack -" _I'd rather unpack my carry-on without you around anyway_. " - but I'd really, really just like to lie down. We can talk more in the morning."

"Yeah, all right." Leaning over, Sebastian puts a hand on Adam's neck and tugs him in for a long, warm kiss. "Just so you know, your brothers are idiots," he mumbles against Adam's mouth. "You are the most generous -" Kiss. "- patient -" Another kiss, longer now. "- warm, interesting, talented, incredible and _hygienic_ person -" He punctuates each attribute with a kiss up to the end, which makes them both laugh right into each other's mouths. " - who has ever been stupid enough to love me," Sebastian finishes, pulling away to sit back, but his hand is still on Adam's face, thumb tracing over a cheekbone.

Adam reaches up to cover Sebastian's hand with his. "It is an honor and a privilege," he gets out in a whisper, too choked by all he feels for this impossible, mercurial man. "I do love you very, very much, you know. Thank you for being here with me."

"I love the fuck out of you, too," Sebastian tells him, and Adam chuckles again, just a little, the laugh fading away in the fierce light burning dark in Sebastian's eyes, the conviction and sincerity behind the sentiment that brands it onto Adam's heart and convinces him all over again that he wants to marry this man. Is _going_ to marry him. "And there was no way you were coming here without me, no matter how twitchy I got." He gets to his feet and tugs Adam up after him. "Bedtime," he says firmly, and Adam is not inclined to argue.

They haul their bags up the last few steps and Adam reaches for the doorknob, mindful of how he'll need to give the tricky catch a jiggle, lift and push - it hadn't been installed correctly, there'd always been a knack to it. "Right. Well, home sweet temporary -"

He swings the door open and stops in his tracks, mouth agape.

His mother has cleaned the place quite thoroughly, just as she’d said. Every surface gleams under low light, the floor and its throw rugs are immaculate, the desk is tidy, the bed is piled high with pillows and turned invitingly down.

What Moira has not done, what Adam had not thought to ask her to do, was to take down the entire wall of posters that slants over his bed. He hasn't been home in ages and never with a boyfriend - the evidence of the lifelong obsession that had been inconsequential under those circumstances is more than a little embarrassing now.

It is the cherry on top of the very strange sundae that has been this entire evening.

Sebastian peers in over his shoulder, taking in the sight. "Wow," he comments, craning his head around in interest. "So you _really_ have a thing for Take That."

 


	5. Hit The Ground Running

“ _So come on, come on, get it on...don't know what you're waiting for..._ ” Adam's voice wafts out of the bathroom attached to the attic bedroom. “ _Your time is coming, don't be late...hey..._ ow. Bloody hell.”

Sebastian yawns and stretches in the bed, rolling onto his back to blink up at the poster-papered slanted ceiling wall thing. Whatever you call the top of an attic. “Babe?” he calls out, guessing Adam's cut himself shaving. “You all right?”

He'd move to actually go see what's up, but Robbie Williams - the only member of Take That he can actually name, thanks to a spirited Warblers debate on whether or not they should do _Rock DJ_ for Sectionals one year - has a strangely hypnotic smirk, and there are at least five of him beaming it down over the bed right now. The knowledge of that smirk existing in the dark of the bedroom had kept Sebastian awake most of the night.

He's too tired to move. And also slightly afraid to. Not exactly an auspicious start to his first full day in England.

“Yes, damn it all. Ah well. Not too bad.” Adam emerges from the bathroom, pajama-bottom clad and pressing a damp washcloth to his jawline with a rueful smile. “Went too fast with a new blade, as per usual. And the singing. Probably shouldn’t sing and shave at the same time. Good morning, sunshine.”

“Not before caffeine, I’m not.” With a little effort, Sebastian tears his eyes off the ceiling and rolls over, faceplanting into his pillow. “Ugh, mornings.”

The bed dips and Sebastian hears the washcloth land on the bedside table with a splat. “Ah, but it’s a very nice English morning, and my mother is downstairs preparing to make what promises to be the largest breakfast either of us have ever seen. She’s completely convinced you don’t eat enough. And fortunately for you, I do have caffeine handy.” Fingers poke at Sebastian’s back, just shy of threatening to tickle. “Come now. Up you get.”

Sure enough, when Sebastian grumbles his way up to sitting, Adam has a heavy blue pottery mug in his hand that he passes over with a kiss. Sebastian can almost feel the caffeine waking up his brain with the first sip of tea. “You’re an angel.”

“Most nights you call me God. I feel downgraded.” Adam winks, scooting in close. “Sorry I forgot milk for it."

"S'ok. Undiluted caffeine might be a good approach before we go downstairs to face the masses." He yawns and takes a bigger gulp of tea. "Unless you've already been down? Where'd this come from?"

Adam points back to the battered old desk, where an electric kettle sits next to a stack of old magazines and playbills. "I did have to go downstairs for sugar, but the kettle’s a perk of having banished myself to the top floor when the twins were born. Along with my own bathroom, a fireplace, that really great little clock-radio-phone dock thing, and complete privacy. Didn't manage to successfully lobby for a tiny little refrigerator, though. I expect Mum quite rightly suspected I'd never come downstairs again if they installed that." Stealing Sebastian's mug, he swipes a sip and hands it back. "There's also a rather handy sneak-out route through that window there, if you're up to shimmying down a drainpipe."

"Three floors up? No, thank you. I much prefer the quiet stalk out the door and down the stairs method." He yawns, clutching the returned mug to his chest and glares at Adam. “Get your own mug.”

“Yes, yes, greedy thing you.” But the raspberry Adam blows takes out all the sting of the mock insult. He slips off the bed and ambles over to the desk for the kettle. “Did you sleep well, love?”

Sebastian stares warily up at the wall of posters as Adam disappears into the bathroom. “More or less?”

The faucet runs for a minute before Adam emerges, full kettle in hand and skeptical look on his face. “Well, that didn’t sound hesitant or mildly ominous at all.”

“It’s just…” He has nothing against Take That, of course not, he barely knows anything about the group except from Adam’s surprisingly prodigious iTunes playlist for them. He only has something against the fact that teenaged Adam apparently seemed most attracted to them when they were all staring intensely into a camera. “It’s the staring, babe. They’re all staring. They’ve been staring at me all night.” His fingers tighten around the mug. “Staring.”

Adam joins the crowd, staring at Sebastian for a very long and, given that he has company, uncomfortable moment. “Are you judging? It sounds like you’re judging.”

_No. Yes._ “Only your taste in posters.” Yeah, it sounds as stupid out loud as it did in his head.

And Adam obviously agrees. “Do I need to remind you,” he begins, crossing over to the desk and plugging the kettle back in, “that I am in possession of several photos of _your_ untouched teenage bedroom, sent to me by your mother? With four walls solidly papered with all five members of One Direction, but most of all that one blond Irish one?”

“I’m not judging your taste in bands, you idiot,” Sebastian snaps, feeling his face go about ten shades of hot, red, and flustered. “I’m judging the fact that they’re all facing your bed and staring at us like a gang of serial killers.”

They glare each other down for several minutes. Adam is the first to relent when the kettle boils. “Fine.” He switches it off and pours the hot water into his mug. “I admit that the wall might take a certain amount of getting accustomed to.”

Sebastian’s eyes go so wide he imagines there may be a genuine risk of sprain. “Getting accustomed to? I may not sleep -”

“Niall. Horan.” Adam counters succinctly.

Sebastian _wants_ to argue his point, but he knows too well that his position is untenable at best. He's still prone to a touch of embarrassment over his boy band loving past, and Adam is very clearly not. “You win.”

Adam shuffles back over to the bed with his steeping tea. “New subject please,” he asks as he slides under the covers, nudging at Sebastian’s shoulder. “Or at least, back to the original one, sort of. You didn’t sleep well, obviously, but how are you feeling?”

Sebastian considers the question while he runs his fingers over the decorative ridges on his mug. There is a lot to unpack there. Yesterday had been more eventful than either of them had expected and he knows he hasn’t slept enough to give a full, fair assessment. “I think I need more time to adjust but...I don’t feel like running away,” he offers at last, feeling fairly secure in keeping things simple. “Your parents are nice. Your sisters are...slightly frightening, in that teenage girl way, but I like them. I’m trying very hard to reserve judgment on your brothers. Chloe may replace you as my favorite person.”

“That's a reasonable assessment,” Adam says. “Though I will have you know, Chloe may be able to offer you baby lambs, but she would have no idea how to make your favorite s’mores brownie pie.”

“Which is why,” Sebastian amends hastily, “she will never actually win.”

“You’re so easy.” Adam sets his mug aside and plucks Sebastian’s away as well, setting them safely on the bedside table before he rolls over to press Sebastian down into the bed. His hand strokes down along Sebastian’s side and arm, faint tickles across the skin before their fingers twine together and Adam is kissing Sebastian breathless, hips rolling forward and tongue flicking across Sebastian’s bottom lip.

It’s good, so good, so easy to fall into the familiar rhythm. Sebastian lets his free hand come up to cup the back of Adam’s head, lets his fingers slip through the soft strands of Adam’s hair before he pulls Adam closer and -

\- and then he opens his eyes. It’s all over in an instant.

It takes a second for Adam to realize anything is wrong. He’s blinking in confusion as he pulls back to look at Sebastian. “Love?”

And Sebastian feels very dumb but can only wave a limp hand at Robbie #2 up on the ceiling-wall-thing. “He’s...smirking at me.”

With a sigh, Adam slumps down onto Sebastian’s body. When he shakes his head, his hair tickles at Sebastian’s neck. “I’m sorry. I’ll take them down,” he says into Sebastian’s chest.

“No.” Feeling guilty, he gives Adam’s hand a squeeze and the top of his head a kiss. “I’ll get used to them. And if I don’t, we’ll be home in a week anyway.”

Adam props himself up on an elbow. “I suppose it’s just as well. Mum’ll be yelling up any minute for breakfast as it is.” Another sigh, and he’s pushing himself up and off the bed, headed back into the bathroom. “We should finish our tea and go downstairs.”

“For the record, it was really good until I opened my eyes,” Sebastian calls after him, slumping back against the wall. It _had_ been good. He glares up at Smirking Robbie #5. “And also for the record, I’m absolutely blaming you,” he informs the poster.

Obviously this doesn’t make him feel like an idiot _at all_. Obviously.

***

They surprise Moira and the twins when they present themselves for breakfast fifteen minutes later, clean and dressed and with only Adam’s slightly-less-than-artfully tousled hair giving any indication that there might have been a brief, heated make-up tussle in the bathroom at some point during the preparation process.

“I wasn’t expecting you for a while yet,” Moira frets, pulling down an extra pair of bowls. “Tim and Stephen have gone off to the school already, but you could have slept in, darlings, honestly, it’s only half past seven.”

“We’re all turned about with the time change and new place to sleep and all,” Adam says, flopping down at the table next to Rebecca and snatching a piece of toast from her hand. Her squeal of protest is answered with a grin and a smacking kiss on the cheek. “I don’t think either of us slept well.”

The twins, dressed and ready for school in dark blue blazers and tartan skirts, regard them with interest. Rebecca smiles in sympathy but - “I wouldn’t sleep well with Gary Barlow staring down at me either,” Rhiannon mumbles into her oatmeal, so low only Sebastian hears.

He bites down so hard on his lip to hold back laughter that he nearly breaks the skin.

Bowls of oatmeal hit the placemats in front of Sebastian and Adam. “Here. I’ll get the sausage and eggs on for you, but start with this,” Moira instructs, whisking back over to the stove. “There’s more where that came from, don’t be afraid to ask. Rhiannon, love, could you get them tea, or milk, or coffee, or would you like juice, boys? Adam likes orange but I didn’t know what you’d want, Sebastian dear, so I also got -”

Adam gets to his feet and guides his mother to a chair. “Mum. Stop. Sit. Porridge and toast are fine. We can get our own tea, or coffee, or juice, or milk. We’re fine, stop fussing.”

“As if I could, darling. Adam, I don’t think you feed that young man. What sort of son of mine are you? Tsk.” Moira’s back on her feet, an unlikely Donna Reed in a Ramones shirt and black jeans. Once again, Sebastian finds himself wishing he had his camera on hand - the women of this family are just begging to be photographed, to have all their spark and fire captured on film forever. If he could manage it.

There’s a tug on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “Come with me,” Rhiannon whispers, keeping a hold on his sleeve as she slips out of her chair. She tugs harder when he doesn’t move. “Come _on_ ,” she repeats, rolling her eyes with impatience. “They’ll be at it for an age, won’t notice us gone.”

Sebastian glances over at Moira, who despite Adam’s protests is cracking eggs into a bowl and arguing with him about breakfast. They look thoroughly engaged in their discussion - well, it looks like Adam is definitely on the losing side, but he is definitely engaged. At the table, Rebecca has her head propped on her hand and is making no attempt to conceal her amusement at the entire thing.

He gets up before Rhiannon can start attempting to drag him bodily out of his seat and follows her out of the kitchen. “Is something wrong?”

“Nah. Just wanted a chat.” She leads him back up the stairs to the second floor.

“And...we couldn’t do that in the kitchen.”

“Not the way I want to have it. Mum would have my head.” Looking up and down the hallway, she pushes open a door and beckons him in. “Don’t worry. It’s just a girls’ bedroom. Nothing scary. And I’ve only got a few minutes before Hayley and her mum get here to take Bex and me to school, so move it.”

“Hm. Never been in a girls' bedroom. First time for everything.” He follows her through the door and stops for a minute to get his bearings. One room, definitely not occupied by boys, split right down the middle with a single bed on each side. There’s no mistaking which side is whose, either - not with the wall over one bed covered in Sex Pistols and Stone Roses posters and the other side hung with photographs of Yo Yo Ma, The Wanted, and carefully constructed collages of personal pictures.

It astounds him that he’d ever once thought that he could never keep the twins separate.

Rhiannon flings open the window that divides the areas and waves him over to join her, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of an inner pocket of her school blazer. “Want one?”

“I see why your mom might have objected. No thanks. I don’t smoke.” The answer is automatic. And something of a lie. He doesn’t smoke around Adam, but he’s never quite given up, either.

And the droll expression on Rhiannon’s face lets him know she knows. “Please. You may not smoke at home, but we know our own kind and you know it. Here. One won’t kill you.” She pulls two out of the pack and hands him one, offering a lighter in the next moment. “Just blow the smoke out the window. I’ve got mouthwash in here for after. Take a drink of something before you kiss Adam again.”

Sebastian accepts the cigarette with some reluctance at first - but he has to admit, lighting up and inhaling is soothing. It’s the calmest he’s been in 24 hours. He passes the lighter back to Rhiannon. “Fine. You got me. But you didn't drag me up here to bust me for being a smoker.”

“You've got that right.” She takes her own first lungful in. “Actually, I wanted to apologize to you. For what I said at the airport. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

Sebastian turns to look at her, slightly surprised. “Really? That's why you hauled me up here? You don’t have to apologize for that. I knew you were joking.”

“Yeah, but you were already freaked out. I didn’t need to add on to that. It was pretty shit of me.” She shakes her head and flicks ash out the window. “I’m not into hugs, but I’m not actually a stone cold bitch. Though if you do try to tell anyone that, I _will_ kill you.”

He laughs. “I’m getting some mixed messages here.”

“Just keeping you on your toes.” Half a smile tips up her mouth before she inhales again. Her next words are carried out the window on a puff of smoke. “You're right again, though. That's not all...can I ask you something?”

“I…” Sebastian frowns, but he can’t really see a reason to refuse. He stalls for a minute to be sure, tapping at the butt of his cigarette. Finally, he gives up and shrugs. “Sure, if you want.”

“I want.” Silence falls as Rhiannon smokes, and he can see her biting at her lip a little before she continues. “Listen, you...you love my brother, right? Really and truly go the distance love him? I mean, you made your first meeting with us a wedding, so I figure you have to love him some, right?"

He looks hard at her to try and see if he can figure out what she’s up to, but in a flash Rhiannon bows her head, allowing her hair to slip over her shoulders and conceal her face; all Sebastian can see is the tip of her nose and the cigarette she holds in front of her mouth. “That’s a little on the severely personal side. I met you less than twelve hours ago.”

Tipping her head back up, she angles a glare at him through her hair. “You said I could ask. He’s my brother. And I already have one of those who is moping around like love just about killed him. I like Adam a little bit more than I like Tim, and I already like you a hell of a lot more than I ever liked that stroppy cow Carys. So can you please tell me that you love my brother and you’ll be sticking around?”

The unexpectedly direct speech and Rhiannon's harsh glare render Sebastian completely silent, groping for words and coming up empty. In his distraction, he forgets about his cigarette as he stares at her - at least until it burns down to his fingers and he drops it in his lap. “Ow! Fuck!”

Rhiannon reaches over and takes the cigarette away, deftly dropping it into a plastic bottle of disgusting looking gray water and accumulated cigarette butts. “Answer the question, please.”

“Yes, I love him,” Sebastian tells her, shaking his hand and feeling no small amount of irritation at being interrogated and idiotic enough to burn himself smoking. “Of course I love him. A lot, thank you very much. I’m generally more afraid he’ll leave me than the other way around.” He stops, further annoyed at having revealed so much - too much. “Damn it.”

The ghost of a smile makes a fleeting mark on Rhiannon's face. "I imagine you’d have to do something really fucking stupid to make that happen." She stubs her cigarette out in the metal frame of the window and tips it into the butt bottle, capping it off and leaning to slide it under her bed. "But thanks for your honesty. Bear in mind if you do leave him, I’ll -”

“Kill me. I know.” He sits back, still puzzled by whatever just happened. “That message is loud and clear now.”

“Good boy." Sitting back up, she tosses her hair back and presents a bottle of mouthwash and two shot glasses from under her bed. "Bottoms up!"

***

“There’s the man of the hour!” Chloe beams at Sebastian as he and Rhiannon re-enter the kitchen, waving from her perch at the table. “I just got here. You’ll be ready to go after breakfast?”

“I just need to get my gear bag.” He takes the seat between her and Adam and can’t help but smile. Tired as he is, and feeling like he’s been wrung out even more by Rhiannon’s bizarre interrogation, Sebastian still finds himself surprisingly interested in visiting a sheep farm. Nature had never quite been his bag...well, it never had been, period. Ever. But he likes Chloe, and sheep seem cute. Fluffy, even. It’ll be fun, or something. “And -”

“Eat. You need to eat.” Moira places a plate full of egg, sausage and toast down in front of him. “Jam is there, here’s a fork for you, and you’re not getting up from this table until the whole lot of that is gone.”

Adam, Sebastian realizes, had been correct. This is without question the largest breakfast he’s seen in a very long time. And Moira’s face says more clearly than any words could that he really had better do his level best to eat every bite.

He glances down to where the family dog - Norman? No, Newton - is sitting at his feet with what looks like a smile on his furry face. When Moira turns to fill a cup with coffee, it's less than the work of a moment to cut off a bite of sausage and slip it under the table and even less time than that for it to disappear and for Newton to lick at his hand in gratitude.

Adam, at his left and working through his own plate, leans over to kiss his cheek, apparently having not noticed the slight of hand. “Tried to talk her out of it, but no one goes up against my mother in an argument and wins.”

“Your father does,” Moira sings out as she settles into a chair with her coffee. “But I don’t expect you’d find his methods terribly useful or, it must be said, appropriate -”

“Mother, oh my god,” Rhiannon groans. “I’m trying to eat over here. We are _all_ trying to eat over here.”

Moira’s eyes sparkle with unmistakable mischief over the rim of her coffee cup. “Well, it is what it is,” she says, setting the cup back down. “So. The twins are off to school as soon as Hayley and her mother arrive, I take it Sebastian and Chloe are out at the farm today, so Adam, darling, that leaves you at a loose end, I’m afraid. You could come with me to sort donations at the food bank, but that’s only a couple of hours. You’ll have to sort yourself this afternoon, I’ve my latest manuscript to revise and my agent _screaming_ down my neck for it.”

“Perils of being a bestselling author,” Adam chuckles, forking up some eggs and seeming quite deep in thought while he chews. He slides a glance over at Sebastian. “If you don’t mind, darling, I thought I’d cycle over and see David at the flower shop today. You know, catch up and all. He suggested I bring you along as well, but as you’re busy…”

“No, no, that’s fine.” Sebastian hopes he’s still managing to hide the twinges of jealousy he can’t seem to shake whenever he hears David’s name. It’s even more difficult now that he’s _seen_ David, has met him and spoken to him and everything. Now he knows that David is good-looking on top of being caring, self-sacrificing, and nice.

Also he has a voice that Sebastian would not mind hearing reading a phone book. Hmph.

Sebastian nails his smile on tighter and slips another bite of sausage to Newton. “I don’t mind at all. I hope it’s nice.” _I hope he has a tragic accident with his pruning shears._

No, he doesn’t. Entirely. Quite. Much.

He is ignoring Rhiannon’s knowing smirk.

“Hayley’s here!” Rebecca bounces up out of her seat and grabs her schoolbag. With lightning speed, she manages to get around the table to give everyone a kiss on the cheek. “Mum, Hayley and Tris and I will come back here after school to rehearse some more, is that all right?”

“Perfectly fine, darling. Have a lovely day at school, the both of you.” Moira smiles and shoos her daughter out the door. Rhiannon, of course, had simply waved around to everyone and disappeared out to the car ahead of her sister.

Chloe gives Sebastian a poke in the arm. “I wouldn’t rush you, but I’ve a pair of lambs on a feeding schedule…”

“Right, sorry.” He shovels down two sausages, a slice of toast, and most of his eggs under Moira’s eagle eye. “I don’t think I can finish it all.”

“That’s all right, love, I’ll get another chance to feed you later. We’ll put some weight on you yet before you leave here.” She actually pats him on the head before whisking his plate away. “You two get moving.”

Adam stands up to give Sebastian a kiss. “I hope you have fun, darling.”

“Same for you,” Sebastian lies through his teeth, and gives Adam a long, hard kiss back before slipping Newton one last bite and going upstairs for his camera bag.

***

“The farm’s not far,” Chloe tells him, shifting gears in the massive truck Sebastian still can’t believe she just hopped right into like it wasn’t three times her size. “But I didn’t want to make you walk two miles your first morning here. Though after a breakfast like that, maybe I should have done.” She pats her stomach and shakes her head. “Oof.”

“I don’t know why Moira thinks I need feeding.” Sebastian sighs and immediately regrets it as the waistband of his jeans bites into his stomach. “It’s not like we don’t have food in New York City.”

“Mrs. C. thinks everyone is underweight, Sebastian. Even Brendan, and you’ve seen him, he’s built like a house.” The truck crunches as she turns into a graveled drive flanked by gates and a big sign pronouncing them to be at Alden Farms. “I don’t know if it’s a Scottish thing or what, but she’s always been like that. She meant it, by the way. You _will_ gain half a stone this week, at least.”

"I don't really know what your bizarre units of measurement translate to in real people terms," he shoots back, but it's a half-hearted attempt at teasing at best, thanks to the mention of Brendan. Sebastian lays a hand over where his too-full stomach has contracted painfully at the memories of last night. He’s trying to keep an open mind on the topic of Chloe’s fiancé, he really is, because he does like her so much already. He just wishes it could be easier. The guy had been a jerk to him, but worse - he’d been a raging asshole to Adam all of his life. Given that Sebastian would, without question or thought, take a bullet for his partner, it's remarkably difficult to stay objective.

Meeting David had been uncomfortable, but meeting Brendan had been _excruciating_. Exactly as he’d feared and then some.

The truck stops, and Chloe throws it into park before shutting it off. “I can hear you thinking,” she says, twisting in her seat to face him, solemn and worried. “I can guess what you’re thinking _about_ , and we will talk about it, I promise. But not yet, okay? Just…” She shakes her head, looking down to twist her engagement band around her slender finger. “Not yet. Give me an hour or so.”

Sebastian looks at her, half-skeptical and half-surprised. “How do you know?”

“Because anyone who knows Adam and meets Brendan wonders the same thing. You love Adam, it’s natural to want to know.” She pops off her seat belt, opening the truck door to climb down, subject obviously closed. “But we’ve work to do and lambs to feed. Watch your step.”

“But I -” And then her warning registers, just as Sebastian hops down out of the truck with the intent of circling it to confront her. He's too late to stop himself from landing in a puddle that’s mucky up to his ankles and splashes him to the knee with mud. All questions are lost in a single moment of freezing horror. “Oh, fuck.”

Chloe’s solemn demeanor disappears into a flood of giggles when she comes around the front of the truck and sees him. “Oh, my god, I'm so sorry, Sebastian. I should have said sooner. It’s been rainy -”

“Rain, in England?” He pretends to be shocked. “You don’t say.”

“Fuck off, it doesn’t actually rain all the time! This is not Wales!” She gives him a good poke in the side, and he can’t hide his wince. There'd been some force behind it. “I’ll get you a pair of wellies and we’ll clean the mud off your boots when it dries, it’ll be easier.” Taking him by the arm, she pulls him forward. “Come on, the barn’s just here.”

On her home turf, Chloe moves with brisk efficiency, leading Sebastian into the barn and pushing him down on a bench. Within minutes she has him in fresh clean wool socks and a pair of rubber boots, with his own socks and boots drying on the bench beside him. Before he even has a chance to breathe - not that he’s sure he wants to; he hadn’t figured the smells of sheep crap and wool into his Possibility of Fun equation - she’s got him up and running again, this time following her down a corridor of sheep baa-ing idly from their straw-filled stalls. “I’d stop to introduce you to everyone,” she calls over her shoulder, pulling him along at a brisk pace. “But we really are very late, and Oscar and Bosie need their breakfast.” They skid to a stop outside of a low pen, where two beige lambs are already making very insistent noises. Chloe begins to climb over the pen railing. “Come on, Sebastian. They won’t bite.”

She waits until he’s climbed halfway over before adding, “Probably.”

“Your timing with warnings really sucks,” he complains, stepping gingerly into the pen. Chloe giggles at him yet again.

“It’s only accidental half the time,” she assures him, sticking her tongue out at him. She scratches at the neck of the lamb on her left, which has a slightly darker tinge to its fur than its little compatriot to her right. “The rest of the time is strictly for my own amusement, and I’ll never tell you which is which. Anyway. This here little fellow is Oscar, named for Oscar Wilde, and this one’s Bosie. Their mother rejected both of them, poor babies, which means I’m playing Mum now. And for today, so are you.”

“Oscar and Bosie?” Sebastian raises an eyebrow. Dramatics is definitely more Adam’s thing, but Dalton had had a surprisingly liberal English department, and he distinctly remembers watching _Wilde_ for a term paper. “Really, Chloe?”

“I name all my orphans for famous playwrights, usually,” she informs him, sticking her nose up in the air with a prim sniff. “But it just seemed wrong to have an Oscar without a Bosie.”

“Aren’t they brothers?” he can’t help but ask.

“They’re sheep,” Chloe replies tartly. “I expect it doesn’t bother them much.”

Sebastian has to concede the point.

With a sunny smile, Chloe gets down to business, climbing back out of the pen to retrieve a pair of bottles full of what looks like milk. “We don’t have to feed them much of this now,” she says, handing him one of the bottles. “They’ve started in on light feed, but they’re not fully ready to wean. Take Bosie there -” she points, “as he’s the more sort of complacent of the two of them, and just pop the teat into his mouth. Like so.” She settles down onto the floor of the pen, mindless of the dirt and straw, and cuddles Oscar close, inserting the rubber tip of the bottle into his mouth.

Sebastian holds his bottle and looks down at Bosie, who stares expectantly right back at him. “Just like that?”

“If you don’t soon,” comes the reply, “I’m pretty sure he will climb you for it.”

He takes a deep breath, gets down on the pen floor, and waits for Bosie to wander over and obligingly tuck himself under his arm. Before he can let himself think too much about what he’s doing, Sebastian sticks the bottle nipple into the lamb’s mouth, holding his breath.

The world doesn’t end. Bosie doesn’t keel over and die. The lamb tucks his legs underneath himself and sucks away at his bottle, occasionally blinking big, trusting brown eyes up at Sebastian.

It’s the most adorable thing _ever_ . Totally worth the muck in his boots and the smell of sheep poop in his nose. Maybe this nature thing isn’t so bad. “I think I see why you got into doing this for a living,” he says to Chloe in astonishment, unable to tear his eyes away from Bosie’s contented little face. “They’re so _cute_.”

“It does sort of make up for spending far too much of my time with my arm shoved up the back end of the ewes,” Chloe replies. “And you don’t even want to know what I have to do to the rams sometimes.”

Sebastian looks up, horror once again crawling icy up his spine at the mental images he can't fend off. “Okay, I take it back. I actually don’t see why you do this for a living, in that case.”

"It's what I know, Sebastian," she laughs. "I helped with my first birth when I was ten years old. I was the girl who got to have her father bring lambs in for show and tell. I learned how to shear sheep when I was sixteen."

He stares. "No way do you shear sheep. You're pocket sized."

"Would you like me to demonstrate my skills on your head?" Chloe asks, batting her eyelashes and not breaking her grip on Oscar's bottle. "I promise, you will lose." She smiles sweetly at him, letting it erupt into laughter when he shakes his head at her. When she calms down, she goes on with a shrug. "Honestly. It truly is as simple as the fact that sheep are what I've always known, and I love working with them. I love bringing them into the world. I don't love each and every aspect of what I do, but I do it because overall, I love the job itself." She gestures to the hook on the wall upon which he'd hung his gear bag. "You know what it is to do what you know and love."

Sebastian considers his own work, the objectionable aspects of photography like screaming mothers and the smells of chemical baths, the rising price of film, the cost of running a studio, and temperamental assistants. He weighs them against captured moments of sweetness between wedding couples, against finding himself in the magic hour, against babies that stay still and smile like sunshine. And - "Yes. A little." He thinks of the photos he'd taken of Adam and his coworkers at Sweets last year, the shoot that had helped him decide once and for all to get out of advertising. He doesn't love sheep, but he does love photography. It correlates. "Well, actually, a lot."

"Yeah, I thought you might understand," she says, smiling down at Oscar and tickling the little lamb's chin. “I mean, honestly, I could have done acting. I liked being in dramatics with Adam and David and all that, and I was good at it. But this...this is where I’m happiest, amongst the baa-baas.” And she truly is happy, it's clear as day.

But then the mention of David makes Sebastian want to ask about him, and he doesn’t even know why. _This is ridiculous_. He is a grown man in a secure relationship. He loves Adam, Adam loves him. And if he keeps repeating it, he will actually convince himself that he is not, in fact, jealous for no reason whatsoever.

Besides, it’s a terrible idea to ask Chloe about David. Sebastian cannot fake casual interest to save his life and she’s much too perceptive for his comfort.

Any questioning is forestalled anyway when she gently pries the nipple of her empty bottle out of Oscar’s mouth and gets to her feet, dusting off the seat of her battered jeans. “I think we’re done here for a few hours. How’s Bosie doing?”

Bosie, when Sebastian looks down at him, is determinedly continuing to suckle away at his bottle as if he hadn’t drained it of every drop. Sebastian tugs the bottle away and wins an indignant _baa_ for his efforts. “Done here, too.”

“Well done you, then.” She strides over and reaches down to pull him up to his feet with a strength that definitely convinces him that she _could_ wrestle him to the ground and shave his head if she really wanted to. “We’ll leave them to it and move on to the next thing. Which is - “ Chloe tilts her head up and sets her chin. “I will allow you to ask me about Brendan.”

He frowns, surprised that it could have been an hour already. _I don't even know where to start! I haven't had enough time!_ “Really? I can -”

She lifts a hand to forestall him. “But you _are_ going to help me muck out the stalls while you do it.”

The shocked laugh bursts out of him before he can even try to hold it back. “You can’t be serious.”

Her raised eyebrow and knowing tiny smile makes him regret the statement instantly. He doesn't buy the innocence in her eyes for a second as she purrs, “Oh, can't I?”

With dizzying speed, she has him standing in an empty stall with a pitchfork - an actual honest-to-fucking-god pitchfork! - in his hands, up to his knees in soiled straw. Sebastian gapes down at himself. “Oh my god, you actually were serious.”

“As a bloody heart attack, thank you.” Chloe picks up a shovel and heads into the stall with him. “I want to be in a position to fling sheep shit at you if you get entirely stupid.”

Well, now he’s almost afraid to ask _anything_. Especially after one pass of her shovel over into the wheelbarrow they’re using to collect the soiled straw comes dangerously close to being dumped all over him.

“All right, here. I’ll start you off,” she says after he’s spent two stalls mulling over what to ask and failing badly at forking straw out of any of them. “Look. The first major point is that I had a schoolgirl crush on Brendan, as I’m sure Adam must have at least mentioned in passing.”

“He said you’d always liked Brendan,” Sebastian answers with care, making sure he’s well away from her shovel. Not that he thinks distance will do him any good, she’s certainly strong enough to hurl a shovelful of crap at him from across the stall. “He didn’t call it a crush.”

“Well. Adam is kind, in that case. Or oblivious.” She dumps a load into the wheelbarrow and stops to lean on her shovel, wiping her damp forehead with her forearm while she catches her breath. “It was a crush, plain and simple, for most of our lives. I think you know I’ve known the Crawfords since Adam and I were in nursery together.” Still gasping a little, Chloe waves a limp hand at him. “Go on. Keep working. You can listen and fork.”

He can’t even fork. But he does try his best, biting his tongue against the urge to curse every time he spills straw across his borrowed boots. “Okay. So you had a crush. So what?”

“It’s important that you know it was a crush. That I was not just blindly in love with Brendan my entire life and completely ignorant of what was going on between him and Adam.” Her brown eyes are narrowed and her jaw set. “I knew exactly what was happening. I was there for just about everything, all the times Brendan taunted, all the times Adam just took it until Brendan was done, all the stupid mean pranks and all of that. And while I very much admired Brendan’s handsome outside, there was no denying that the inside wasn’t exactly what I’d call pretty.” When she resumes shoveling, it’s with a renewed energy and added violence, breath racing out of her nostrils so hard Sebastian wouldn’t be surprised to see it catch on fire. “And he was like that with everyone, honestly. I mean, he was a prick. Just a total prick. He was good at sports and clever in school and he knew he was good looking. All of which, quite frankly, made him the most insufferable arsehole at Crown Gate School.”

This has done nothing to alleviate Sebastian’s confusion, and it sends him back to the simple question he'd asked Adam . “Then what do you see -”

“Here’s the amazing thing about people, Sebastian: they change.” When she stops this time, Chloe throws her heavy braid back over her shoulder and looks directly at him, eyes burning. “When Adam and I were sixteen, Brendan left for uni. He went to Scotland and he stayed there - he only came back a bit over three years ago.”

Sebastian shakes his head, still dubious. “So?”

“So, the aforementioned change, Sebastian.” She manages to make his own name sound like an epithet. “I'm not about to deny or erase a genuinely awful past of terrible decisions, I’m really not. I know Brendan was a total shit to Adam. I was even on the receiving end of some of his nastier moments - and I promise, you will never understand the full irony of a Scotsman having the utter _gall_ to make sheep-fucking jokes at anyone.”

“I -” But she keeps running right over him.

“They’re not pleasant memories, I grant you. They are memories that actually kept me from going out with him for months after he moved back here and we ran into each other.” Her knuckles around the handle of her shovel are white with the pressure of her grip, and they’ve both abandoned all pretense of work. “He had to work really hard to make me believe that a person that awful could truly, genuinely change for the better. But he did it. He put in the time. And so every day that I am with him, I see who he is now.” Chloe swallows hard and the fire dims in her eyes, blood creeps back into her fingers as she loosens her grasp. “I realize I’m not really giving you a whole lot to go on, evidence wise, but - Sebastian, you have to believe first that people are even capable of that kind of dramatic change in themselves. Do you?”

He wants to refute it. Remembering how tense Adam has been all these months, how resigned but unhappy he’d been last night on the staircase - Sebastian wants to completely refute any belief in the possibility of growth and change.

But he can’t.

_It could be me, couldn’t it? It could that easily be me._

Sebastian closes his eyes, breathing in deep despite the acrid smells that scorch his nostrils with every inhalation. “In high school,” he begins, forcing himself to push out every hateful word he’s tried to keep buried for so long, “I...blackmailed students in rival show choirs with Photoshopped nudie pictures. I coerced my fellow show choir members into taking steroids before competition. And maybe the worst thing is that I threw a rock salt laced slushie into another guy’s eyes.” Guilt makes his cheeks burn, and while he can open his eyes, he can’t even look at her. “Granted, it was an accident - he wasn’t my target, and I hadn’t been aiming for anyone’s face. But it happened, and it was my fault. I made the conscious decisions that brought us all to that point.”

When he does finally look up at Chloe, her eyes and mouth are huge and round in shock. “Holy shit.”

His mouth is dry when he swallows. “Yeah. I was really fucking dumb.” He resumes his futile attempts to pick up the straw in the stall, managing to get a few pathetic clumps into the wheelbarrow. There’s a burning knot of anger and guilt he’s never been able to really shake to this day, even after Blaine has forgiven Sebastian, undeservingly, a thousand times over for the incident that had put him in the hospital.

A burning knot that, Sebastian realizes with discomfort, Brendan may actually be quite familiar with.

“So...I assume you’ve changed.” Chloe’s voice breaks into his meandering thoughts. “That was the point of you telling me that, right? I mean, if you were still going around throwing spiked drinks in people’s faces, Adam wouldn’t be with you.”

“No. He wouldn’t.” Looking up at Chloe at last, Sebastian is able to even muster a smile. “Sometime in college...yeah. I grew up. And amazingly, some of those people I was so awful to are my best friends now.”

“Really.” Chloe purses her lips, clearly skeptical. “Rock salt guy?”

“Rock salt guy,” Sebastian feels his smile getting bigger as he shakes his head and laughs. “Rock salt guy is Blaine, and he is petsitting for Adam and I right now.”

“You’re joking.” Setting aside her shovel, Chloe claps her hands and laughs. “That is classic. Oh, my god.”

He just keeps chuckling. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s pretty classic.” He decides to leave out some of the more complicated aspects of his _and_ Adam’s past relationships with Kurt and Blaine. It’s probably easiest.

 Chloe leans forward, putting a hand on his arm. “You see it, then, you understand -”

A voice booms through the barn like a thunderclap then, startling them both. “Cee?”

“Speak of the devil.” Gripping the stall door, Chloe leans back to call out towards the front of the barn. “Back here, darling!”

And sure enough, in a couple of minutes Brendan is poking his head around the stall wall and pushing a gray wool cap back off of his forehead. “Hey, babe.”

 “Brendan!” Chloe reaches out for an embrace.

 “Uh-uh - no, no, no,” Brendan says hastily, backing up and holding out his hands to fend her off, a large paper bag in one of them. “Absolutely no hugs or kissing when you’ve been stall mucking, Cee, you know the rules. I at least had the courtesy to shower off the cow placenta before I came over here.”

"I didn't know when you were coming or I'd have washed off the poo and got my nicest dress on, just for you." She beams an impish grin up at him, completely unrepentant. “Cow placenta? So the McAllisters, then?”

Brendan makes a hideous face. “Got it in one. God, I hate breech cow birthing, the mess is disgusting and you would not _believe_ the noises they make.”

“Yes, because I’ve never in my life been around farm animals giving birth.” Chloe rolls her eyes up at him.

“Cows are different, Cee. I swear to god that mooing is the sound of Lucifer’s eternal damned choir singing.” He bends down to kiss the tip of Chloe's nose – the last truly clean spot on her face - before turning to Sebastian with a considerably more wary smile. “Hi. We...we met last night. Um. You’re Sebastian and...I am a total cock.”

Sebastian snaps out of the startled, staring, open-mouthed-stupid daze he'd fallen into when Brendan really had turned up and out to be a walking, talking decent human being. "Sorry?”

 “No, that's my line,” Brendan corrects, smile growing a little more secure with the bad joke. “Sorry. Really, I am. I was a complete shit last night. I mean, I know I was unforgivably awful. I swear to god I know the difference between a joke and a slur when I'm sober.” He fades back into uncertainty and even repentance, shifting from foot to foot under Sebastian's stupefied gaze. “I wanted to see you and apologize. I’d offer a handshake of peace to go with it, but you didn’t really get off any lighter than Chloe did in the sheep shit department.”

Sebastian looks down at his streaked jeans and the rubber boots he’s really not looking forward to putting his hands on in order to get off. “I guess I didn’t.”

“That happens when Chloe doesn’t give you an actual shovel to work with.” Brendan gently knuckles the top of Chloe’s head, grunting when she pops him in the stomach with her arm. “Not cool, Cee. Nobody can get anything done with an oversized salad fork.”

For a wonder, she actually looks guilty. “I thought it was funny.”

“You always do.” Brendan gives her another tiny kiss on the nose. “Listen, I'm on the run, I really just stopped by to apologize to Sebastian and to drop off lunch for you two.” He holds up the bag. “I got you guys korma, a beef one and a veg one. Hope that’s all right, I didn’t think to ask if you had any food allergies or anything, Sebastian. Sorry again. I can go get something else if you want.”

“No, that’s...that’s fine.” Sebastian doesn’t really know what to do with the Brendan Crawford standing in front of him, cleaned up and sober, making jokes and offering apologies that Sebastian can’t see are anything but sincere. “Adam, um, Adam makes korma for us all the time at home.”

“And it’s probably pretty damn close to this one, we’ve eaten at the local all our lives, he'd know it well enough to duplicate it.” Brendan smiles. “Great, then. Fantastic. I’ll leave you two to get cleaned up and tuck in, then. I’ve got to get back to work; I have it on good authority that the Tressell girls are bringing me a stray kitten after school today and I have a couple of horses to look in on before then.”

“And by good authority you mean…” Chloe crosses her arms over her chest, raising an eyebrow.

“I mean they flagged my van down this morning when I passed them on their way to school, I drove them in, and they told me they’d found the poor little thing half-drowned and starving. I think it must have been abandoned. So I told them to bring it to me and I’d have a look.” Brendan looks ridiculously pleased with himself.

“Brendan…” Chloe’s face is pained, but amused. “We really can’t have another cat.”

“It’s just a kitten, babe, and I promise we’ll find it a home as soon as it’s healthy enough.” Brendan gives Chloe one last kiss on the nose and hands over the bag of Indian food, backing out of the stall before she can say anything else. “I swear! You’ll never notice it - got to go, love you, bye!’

“Brendan James -! Ugh!” Chloe’s hand meets her forehead with a smack when it’s clear Brendan isn’t coming back. “Not again. Not less than a week before our wedding. He _always_ does this.”

“He…” Sebastian finds himself still struggling to make any sense out of what he’s just seen that he can. “He...brings kittens home?”

“Frequently. And at the worst possible times.” She shakes her head and walks out of the stall with the bag, gesturing for him to follow her. “And the neighborhood kids know full well he’s got a heart made of _marshmallow_ and he’ll take care of any little stray they bring him, and half the time we _keep_ them when they’re nursed back to health. Do you know how many mousing cats we have around this farm? This farm alone! And they’re all from strays Brendan took in!” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Oh, the landlady’s going to go _spare_. I don’t need this now.”

Sebastian looks out the open door of the barn, where he can see the van Brendan must have driven up in pulling away. An arm clad in a blue sweater sleeve extends out of the window in a wave before the van accelerates away. “Um...I don't understand any of this. Does he have multiple personalities or something?”

Chloe glares through her fingers. “I’m not that far away from the stall that I can’t go back for a shovelful of shit.”

“It’s a serious question!” But he backs a little further away from her, just in case, just to get a little closer to the door than she is. He completely believes that she is capable of flinging a shovel full of disgusting mess at him with alarming velocity, but she’s going to have to catch him first. “You said he changed, and I believe you, but come on. The kitten loving respectable country vet - that’s a drastic fucking change, Chloe.”

“No,” she snaps back, “last night when he drank himself stupid was a drastic fucking change. He doesn’t drink, believe it or not. But he was so nervous about seeing Adam again for the first time in sixteen years - do you realize it’s literally been that long? He was so nervous and wound up that he got drunk and completely fucked everything, and I promise you he knows it. Do you really think he _wanted_ to make that kind of a tit out of himself in front of Adam? Do you think for one second that I _would_ be with him if he acted like that all the time? No. ” She lifts one grime-covered finger and points it directly at his nose. “And I _never_ said _any_ of this to you. Not a word of it.”

Sebastian pulls away. “Fine, you never said a word.”

“But do you believe me, is the question.” The fire goes out of her and her shoulders slump. “I don’t think you really do.”

“I want to.” And he does, he realizes, he really does, if for no other reason than the fact that he thinks Chloe is amazing. Prank with the pitchfork aside. “I do, Cee.”

“You  _need_ to. I've been asked why I'm with him so many times by everyone who ever knew the story, but making the truth known has never been as important as it is right now.” She sniffles and wipes her nose on her sleeve. “Adam has no idea really what Brendan is like today. Last night didn't help at all. Then Brendan has no idea how to begin to apologize or talk to Adam in the first place and now he’s back at square one, because I  _know_ Adam’s opinion wasn’t exactly shifted to the favorable with that nasty little display.” Looking away, Chloe wipes at her eyes and Sebastian can hear her trying to stifle hiccups and tears. “I was hoping that this week would get off to a good start, see them taking the first steps to reconciling, and I just -” But whatever she was going to say dissolves into weeping, and Sebastian is left, quite literally, holding the bag when Chloe flings their lunch at him and starts sobbing into her hands.

He looks around and sets the bag down on the bench by the barn door before coming back to Chloe for a grimy, awkward hug. “It’s only Monday,” he tries, patting her back. “We have until next Monday. Maybe it can still happen?" Not that he's sure that trying is the best idea or anything either of them should meddle in. "I mean, Adam’s reasonable, and if Brendan can maybe figure out how to say he’s sorry, I mean, Adam might believe him, you know, if Brendan behaves himself…” He's uncomfortable even suggesting this much, when what he wants to do is go back to the house and kidnap Adam out of this craziness and back to their quiet little life in Manhattan.

Chloe cries harder; he has to really work to understand what she's saying between the hiccups and sobs. “I just want him to see the Brendan that I see. The one that brings me lunch every day and sometimes has time to eat it with me. He loves animals, his little sisters, and for some reason I will never know, Coronation Street. He takes care of me when I'm sick, you know? And he helps Tim with running the Scouts, he does half-marathons for charity and if a small child brings in a sick or injured pet, he treats it for free.” She blows her nose into the front of Sebastian’s sweatshirt, and he does his level best not to flinch away from it. “I love him so much, and he's changed so much, and I love Adam and I want them to be brothers again and I want a nice wedding and I -” Her sobs collapse her words completely into incoherence, leaving her mumbling into Sebastian’s shirt, alternating weeping with nose blowing _._

All Sebastian knows how to do is hold her, unsure in the extreme if she really is this upset just because of Adam and Brendan, or if maybe the stress of the wedding is breaking her down. On the one hand, he doesn’t really know Chloe, not yet. On the other, something about the energy of this outburst is eerily familiar after the last several years of watching Kurt and Blaine try and fail to agree on wedding plans, not to mention all the weddings he's photographed.

He's not usually dragged into the turmoil this close, though. There's not really a rulebook for actually being involved in the wedding drama. So he just hangs on, waiting for the sobbing to taper off into tiny sniffles before he even tries to talk. “Okay, so...”

“I'm okay.” She pulls back, wiping her eyes and nose on her filthy sleeve again. He resists the urge to douse the both of them in Purell. Her shoulders come up and she shakes back her braid again. “I'm so sorry for just falling apart, my god.”

“No, you're getting married.” He offers her a half-smile and a shrug. “I work with a _lot_ of brides. I've never seen one that doesn't lose it like that at least once.”

She flashes a wobbly, watery smile up at him. “Thank you.”

Sebastian feels his mouth twist as he looks down at her, watches her try to get her breathing under control, to hopelessly attempt to wipe her face clean with the even more dirty hem of her oversized shirt. “You…man, you really do love him though, don’t you?”

“I really do,” she confirms, still trying so hard to smile. “I love him. And I love Adam, too. I really do want them to sort out their differences. I think it's time.”

  _But is it up to you? And even if it's a good idea, is a week enough time?_ Sebastian knows, though, that even as he asks himself the questions - Chloe just isn't pulled back together enough to hear them yet. And it's such a touchy subject and she wants it so much, maybe the time to bring up his concerns is approximately never.

 He doesn't know what to do. Whatever he'd expected from this wedding week, he'd bet his last pennies it was nowhere near anything like what he's seen in just a day.

  _Executive decision: I'll think about this later._ Picking up the bag, Sebastian slings an arm over Chloe's shoulders. "Maybe we should clean up and have lunch."

"That sounds good." Chloe nods up at him. She's still sniffling, but most of the storm seems to have passed. "Sorry about the pitchfork."

"I'll get you for it one day." He ruffles her hair and hopes she's too distracted to see that his smile is a put-on. "You know, it's been an eventful 24 hours. Is the rest of the week going to be like this?"

"Not if you're very lucky." Chloe cranes her neck to look up at him with a hopeful expression on her face. "Do you feel lucky?"

"Oh, not in the slightest.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've tried to keep this behemoth to a schedule, but the stars are just not aligning for me! I don't know when the next update will go up - I'm aiming for optimism so I hope soonish. Thank you for bearing with me and for reading! You're all very kind. General nattering can be found at [my Tumblr](http://glitterdammerung.tumblr.com).


	6. Nothing Changes Except Everything

_I never felt magic crazy as this...I never saw moons, knew the meaning of the sea…_

Soothing as Nick Drake’s voice is, as ideal as it seems it should be for a nice cycle through Ingatestone with an eventual goal of Morgan’s Florists, Adam is finding that it is not really effective in taking his mind off of the fact that he hasn’t sat himself on a bike seat in over a decade.

_I don’t think my arse has hurt this much since Sebastian dared me to sunbathe in the nude at Fire Island this summer…_

__

Poor Nick isn’t doing a whole lot to calm the just-under-the-skin agitation that had sent Adam on the scenic route to David’s shop, either. An agitation that’s been burning since Brendan’s idiotic behavior last night, an agitation that Adam hopes he’s hidden well from Sebastian - better than Sebastian’s continued attempts at hiding his jealousy of David, at least. He does know he’s managed to hide it from his usually more astute mother; despite spending hours volunteering together at the local food bank, Moira had been too preoccupied with mulling over the edits she was going to have to make to her manuscript to notice Adam slamming boxes and cans around with a bit more force than was strictly necessary.

He’d expected a night of sleep and the novelty of being home to allow things to settle, but if anything, he’s even angrier this morning. _He didn’t even say hello to me. Not a word of greeting, just right back into being the same old Brendan, only now he has a new target. Wonderful._

Adam pulls the earbud out of his ear and stuffs it down into his jacket pocket without breaking his leisurely - well, enforced leisurely, given the ache in his hind end - pedaling pace. Townspeople known and strange to him wave as he pedals by into the business district on the high street, sometimes smiling, sometimes shouting an accompanying greeting. It would be unusual in Manhattan - he’s only ever heard cyclists there be the target of cursing and epithets, and often he never says hello to any stranger in the street unless he bumps into them by accident - but here in Ingatestone, it has always ever been thus. If you see someone out and about, you wave hello. Even if you don’t know or recognize them.

_Some things never change._

__

Like the front of Morgan’s, he observes as he pulls up in front of the shop at last, with its forever bright green door and neatly painted window framed in tidily arranged signs announcing sales. The sign content may change, and a new nosegay might be popped into the basket attached to the door, but beyond that, the flower shop looks just as it always did when he and David worked here after school. It’s all freshly cleaned and repainted as it always was every year, but David hasn’t so much as deviated a centimeter from where his father had always had the white lettering filled in with thin ribbons of gilt colored paint.

_Nothing at all changes here_. It simmers below his surface, makes his scalp itch and his teeth hurt, makes him feel like his skin doesn’t fit.

Adam slides off of the bicycle seat to chain it up, wincing as his feet hit the ground and make pain dance a jig from his calves up to his behind. He walks everywhere, he does yoga with Blaine and Kurt three times a week, Fitz and Roger run him and Sebastian ragged for hours in the dog parks every day...Adam had thought he was in good shape, but as he limps towards the shop door, right now he’s not sure how he’s going to manage getting back to the house.

The shop bell rings as he pushes the door open. _Same bell._ “Hello?”

“Coming!” David emerges from the back room with a vase full of blue, purple, and white delphinium stalks. “Ah...huh. Adam. Hello, not the Crawford I was expecting, not that it’s not good to see you?”

Adam falls back a step into the doorway, letting out a snort and trying not to feel slighted. “Thanks? What do you mean, not expecting? You did invite me here yourself, in case you forgot, just last night. And you do know Chloe isn’t actually a Crawford until Saturday afternoon?”

“Yes, but that’s not - never mind.” Setting the vase down on the shop counter, David shakes his head and smiles. “Hello, again! Good god, I don’t know how I function in public or run a shop. Tea, Adam? The kettle’s just boiled. Is Sebastian not with you?”

“He’s with Chloe today. Tea would be excellent.” There’d been a mild misting of rain as he’d circled St. Mary’s earlier, and while it wasn’t precisely chilly out and his light jacket and wool jumper were keeping his upper half sufficiently warm even while damp, his jeans aren’t really doing the same job for his poor beleaguered backside. Perhaps a nice cup of tea and a bit of standing in front of the shop radiator could unstick him enough to get back to the house.

“Too bad about Sebastian, but I’m glad to see you all the same.” David flashes a smile before disappearing into the back room, rattling and banging around commencing almost immediately. “Come back here so I don’t have to shout, will you? It’s warmer and it isn’t as if you don’t know your way around. Besides, you can sit.”

“No, I’m not sure I can,” Adam mumbles to himself as he pushes through the arrangements of marigold and waxflowers, freesia, gerbera, lilac and phlox. Though in recent years the flowers he knows have been made of sugar and fondant and he deals more in wheat flour than wild flowers, he still feels in his fingers the delicate stems and velvety petals of his teenage years. They remember deadheading in the Morgans’ greenhouse and wrapping wide lengths of ribbon around the stems of calla lilies, carefully pushing long pins into corsage stems and closing the lids of plastic clamshells over their delicate contents.

And his lips remember kissing David's in the back room… _why do I keep coming back to these memories?_

"So, how was your flight over?" When Adam enters the back room, David glances over his shoulder with a slightly sheepish smile. "Sorry, I didn't get to have much of the small talk with you last night, so I'm getting it in now." He pulls a sugar basin out from under the hanging vines of an English ivy, arranging it on a tray. "How's the weather in Manhattan, did you sleep well, is Ingatestone as bizarre to you now as it was to me when I came back from Leeds?"

Adam bursts out laughing. "My flight was fine, the weather is gray, and oh, dear god, has this town always been so very small and unchanging?"

"Basically my thought as well. It's like a horror movie after dark, isn't it?" David's shoulders are shaking with mirth as he pours out the hot water. "Tell me you were tempted to see how quickly you could get your hands on a cricket bat."

"Never have I ever been so dismayed that none of us ever took up that sport." Adam leans in the doorway and tries as surreptitiously as possible to appreciate how David has grown into a very appealing fellow. "Though there was a net bag full of rugby balls for Tim's team in the back of the van. I think in the event of a nocturnal murder rampage, he'd have forgiven me chucking them at an assailant."

David snorts. "So you're telling me you've learned how to accurately throw a ball at last?"

"Well. I'd make Sebastian do it," Adam concedes. "He's the one with experience in sports that involve throwing things."

David turns around at that, a mild and deceptively innocent smile on his face, tea mugs in his hands. “Speaking of Sebastian..."

"You can't have an opinion on him yet, you just met him," Adam warns.

"Not that, although first impressions are favorable. No, I hear congratulations are possibly in order.” When Adam looks at him, David's got his familiar lopsided smirk on the lips Adam was just thinking about a few moments ago. “Is that true?”

Adam groans, all thoughts of teenage kisses vanishing in a cloud of aggravation. “Chloe told you. Damn it.”

“Technically,” David begins, plunking the ancient and familiar brown pottery mugs down onto the tiny back room table and brushing his flop of brown hair out of his eyes, “no, she did not. What she did do is call me at two o’clock this morning, badgered me into turning on FaceTime, and then forced me to play an elaborate game of Charades until I’d guessed at it.”

That’s actually fairly impressive. Adam can’t even be sure he should be mad about it. “Damn. I really should have known she’d find a loophole.”

“You really should have.” The tray with tea things clinks and tinkles when David wedges it into the last bit of free space on the table. “Sit, for heaven's sake.”

"Must I?" He resents the amusement on David's face as he eases himself down into the unpadded chair. "Sweet god, ouch."

“It’s less than a mile from your place to here,” David chuckles, tipping spoonfuls of sugar into his mug. “Life in the States has made you that soft?”

“I took the long way around, thank you,” Adam retorts. “Thought I’d have a look around at things, take my time. I simply haven’t ridden a bike in a very long while.” He reaches for his cup, dunking the tea bags up and down in the hot water. “Whoever made up that little platitude about anything being just like riding a bicycle was clearly deranged.”

David shrugs, brown eyes bright with continued amusement. “You will find no argument here. To be perfectly honest, I got quite used to taking the bus and walking around Leeds, myself. When I got back here and found my old bike in the garage, I thought it would be a piece of piss to take it up again, be environmentally friendly and all.” He lets out a rueful breath of laughter. “Well, as you have found for yourself, not so much. Not at first. It did get easier with time, but as you’re only here for the week, I think I’d just recommend you letting Tim drive you around like he does with the girls.”

“Which is just weird, my god.” Dropping the strings of the tea bags, Adam brings his hands to his temples, rubbing where a minor but persistent headache has been steadily bouncing around his brain since he woke up. “Tim not just back here but living with our parents, teaching at our school, and driving our sisters around. And you! What is it, is Ingatestone like some sort of very specific black hole, drawing any former residents back in one at a time? Should I be concerned for my future?”

Hm. He hadn’t meant that to burst out with quite so much vigor.

David just stares across the table, mug of tea arrested halfway into its journey towards his mouth. “Are you quite all right?”

“Yes. Sorry. I’m fine.” The headache throbs on, and Adam has the sneaking suspicion it’s likely to last all week. That’s surely going to take some of the fun out of baking Chloe’s wedding cake. “More or less, I suppose. I expect it’s just that coming home has turned out to be rather an odd event already, and I’ve been here less than 24 hours.”

“Mm. I’m sure Brendan didn’t help. Chloe mentioned there’d been an altercation.”

“Less said on that score, the better, I think.” Adam just manages to force his jaw away from the act of settling in for a long, hard grinding session on his already much abused back molars. “Fratricide is both illegal and a mortal sin, I’d rather not be tempted.”

“Ah, but the good news is, we’re not Catholic, so a sin is a sin is a sin, and all can eventually be absolved.” Chin in hand, David flashes an impish grin. “Not that that does a whole lot for the illegality of it, of course.”

“Right. Prison isn’t really an ambition of mine. So…” Adam shrugs. “I’ll just avoid him until...Sunday.”

David’s grin falls away, replaced with astonishment in a hurry. “Can you even do that?”

Adam wobbles his hand before picking up his tea. “With careful management.” He hasn’t actually given a whole lot of thought to the idea until just now, but it has merit. An awful lot of merit. He’s really just here for Chloe and his mother’s sake anyway, which means he has a vested interest in keeping the peace. And if he avoids Brendan, then Sebastian might not have to be subjected to his brother either, and they really might accomplish getting through this trip unscathed.

Hm. Yes. This idea is looking better by the second.

“Right. Yes. I’m completely sure your mother is absolutely going to allow that.” David can’t seem to pick his jaw back up. “Really, Adam?”

“My mother is consumed with both the wedding and with completing her latest book, and gave up on trying to make Brendan and I be friends a long time ago, you know that.” _Now Chloe, on the other hand…_

“Okay, I can buy that, but it’s not going to fly with Chloe and I think you’re well aware of that,” David shoots back as if reading Adam’s mind. “It’s her wedding week. You know Chloe. She is going to want everything to be perfect, all sorts of sunshine and rainbows. I don’t think you’ll be able to get around her.”

“As I said, careful management.” It takes some doing, but Adam manages to assume the facade of calm he usually reserves for frantic mothers of brides and the people in charge of obtaining large numbers of muffins for conferences in short amounts of time. “I do have thirty years of experience dealing with Chloe, after all."

"You have precisely no experience dealing with this Chloe - by which I mean Wedding Chloe," David warns. "I feel like you're expecting an impossible outcome."

"Optimism isn’t a crime.” Adam plinks his fingers at the rim of his mug. “Topic change, please. No Brendan, no Chloe, no wedding, can we talk about you? How have you been, David? Are you seeing anyone?”

Frown creasing the bridge of his nose, David shakes his head. “No, I’m not, I have no time. Adam, you can’t bury your head in the sand all week, there’s too much you don’t kn-”

“I just have to get _through_ this week, damn it all,” Adam interrupts, shoving his tea away as his fingers clench into fists. His breath shortens as he imagines confronting his brother now, letting fly with an entire lifetime of his frustrations and hurts. It wouldn’t end well, and he wants to avoid that for the sake of his mother and best friend. “That is _all_ I have to do. I have to bake Chloe’s cake, I have to get a kilt fitted, I have to be in this bloody blasted godforsaken wedding, and I have to manage all of this without my oaf of a brother scaring my boyfriend off before I can actually propose to him! If avoiding said oaf is the best way to do that, why shouldn’t I pretend he doesn’t exist?”

“I’m telling you why, or trying to,” David fires back, exasperation making his cheeks color. “You haven’t been home, you don’t know how -”

“Please, don’t even begin to try telling me things have changed, David.” Shooting to his feet, Adam paces the tiny storeroom, flicking his fingers at clouds of Queen Anne’s Lace and sending tiny white buds drifting to the floor. “Things don’t change here, _especially_ not Brendan. I saw that with my own two eyes last night. I have to protect myself, and I have to protect Sebastian.” In this moment, with Sebastian’s well-being at the forefront of his consciousness, any thoughts and memories of teenage embraces and past romance are as far away from Adam’s mind as reconciliation with his brother. “The rift between us is irreparable. Better I go around it than force it wide open and swallow everyone in it when it inevitably collapses.”

He turns to see how David has received this news, if David is going to push back or give in. But he never finds out, because just as David opens his mouth, the shop bell rings out front. “Hello?”

The voice is instantly recognizable to them both. David and Adam stare at each other in shock, and Adam recovers first. “Is that my brother? Brendan’s here?” he hisses across the storeroom. “Are you bloody serious?”

“I told you that you weren’t the Crawford I was expecting,” David hisses back. “Am I to assume that you’re not here?”

“Of course I’m not bloody here,” Adam grits through his teeth. “Go, before he comes back here to see what’s going on.”

“Fine.” David heads for the front, but pauses in the doorway, hand on the curtain. “I will cover for you exactly _once_ and this is it, you understand?”

“Whatever, just go.” If Adam’s shooing off gesture is a little violent, well, he feels like he’s earned a little bit of agitation.

He doesn’t dare move again, not an inch, not even to brush off the fern frond tickling his left ear. He barely feels as though he can breathe, as if the quietest intake would give away his presence.

“Hey, Morgan,” and for a wonder, Brendan sounds friendly and mostly human when he greets David. “I was on my way back to the clinic and I saw Tim’s bike chained up outside...is Adam here? I know it can’t be Tim, school’s not out yet, so I thought maybe...”

“Ah, no, no, I haven’t seen Adam yet today, I’m expecting him later, but no, he’s not here right now.” It’s not the smoothest lie in the world, and Adam bites down on his lip, hoping it will be smooth enough. He really can’t face Brendan right now. “Must be someone visiting the chemist, maybe?”

“Hm. Maybe.” Brendan sighs. “Too bad. I thought I’d get to apologize to him - I take it you heard about last night? I know Cee called you after she put me to bed, she must have told you.”

“She mentioned there had been an altercation,” David replies carefully, exactly as he’d said to Adam earlier. “Didn’t really go into detail.”

Brendan snorts, and Adam would almost believe it was self-deprecating if it was anyone but Brendan. “Just as well. I don’t exactly come off looking good at the end of it. Got a bit nervous, cocked it all up with some drinking, didn’t even get to say ‘boo’ to Adam before Chloe was dragging me out the door for making a tit of myself to the boyfriend. Sebastian.”

Glass scrapes across the counter, maybe David is moving the big vase of delphiniums aside. “I see. Not the best start to things, I would imagine.”

“Not so much. Though I did just see Sebastian with Cee and I got to apologize to him at least. Was hoping to maybe get him and Adam both in a day...oh well.” Another sigh. “Say, is this my order for Chloe?”

“It is, I just finished it about half an hour ago.” The glass scrapes over the counter again. “Is it satisfactory?”

“Your work always is and you know it.” There’s a tone of something Adam almost wants to identify as admiration in his brother’s voice, but it can’t be, Brendan doesn’t admire anything but his own accomplishments. “This is perfect, Morgan. Dead gorgeous, she’ll love it. Not a bad apology for being an idiot, right?”

“It always worked for my mother and father, or so I’m told,” David chuckles. The cash register dings and the drawer thunks out of its slot. “That’s ten pounds forty, Brendan.”

“You have to stop giving us discounts, I know that's not the normal cost of this,” Brendan chides. “How will you ever make a living?”

“Off of everyone else in town.” The grin in David’s voice is audible. “Your mother invited me for dinner tonight. Will you be there?”

There’s a rustling sound, like Brendan is settling the vase of tall flowered stalks against his shoulder. Adam holds his breath for the answer. _Please say no, please say no_ … “No, best not, I think,” Brendan finally says, and Adam lets his sigh of relief out as quietly as possible. “Maybe if I thought I could see Adam beforehand, have a talk and all...but nah, I don’t want to make things awkward, and they would be. I’ll just try to catch him later.”

_Over my dead body_ , Adam thinks with a certain grimness. Despite his crankiness, though, he is thankful to David for maneuvering the conversation around to that question. He hadn’t even thought of dinner. _I might have to dodge a couple of those this week...hm._

__

“I suppose that’s fair,” David says in a voice that clearly says he doesn’t actually think that at all. “I hope you can find him and work it out. Seems a shame that this has all gone on this long.”

The words are uttered with such a palpable slick of tart acidity that there’s a very long moment of silence before Brendan finally replies. “Yeah, I guess it does,” he says, sounding mystified. “Well, I’m going to have an orphaned kitten coming to the office soon, I need to drop these at the flat and get back. Oh, and the McAllisters gave me some manure for you, I can leave it at yours if you want. ”

“That's fine, thanks - oh, no, but don’t bring another stray kitten home, Chloe’ll go spare,” David calls, but the door bell jingles and then the crunch of tires on asphalt indicate that Brendan is gone, possibly without acknowledging the admonishment. Which wouldn't surprise Adam at all, because god forbid anything get in the way of Brendan and what he wants.

David brushes through the curtains at the back room door. "There. I covered for you. Though I think you're being ridiculous, for the record. I'm sure you heard that he wants to talk to you and apologize?"

"As if he'd be sincere about it. He's just looking to absolve himself for being an idiot to make himself feel better." Irritated, Adam finally flips the fern frond away from his ear and stalks back over to the table for his tea. Which is now cold. Another black mark in the Brendan ledger. "I'm not interested in his fake remorse."

"He's not the only idiot." David throws his hands up with a scoff of annoyance. "Do you seriously believe change is impossible?"

"In this instance? Yes."

"And it's completely out of the realm of anything approaching reality that he could have been so nervous about seeing you again that he got drunk and made a really stupid mistake, and now he really feels genuinely awful about it?" Crossing his arms over his chest, David levels a glare on Adam that gets Adam's hackles right up. "I mean, you’re going to really be this stubborn about this? Why the hell did you even agree to be in the wedding if you were never going to try to meet Brendan halfway?"

"I was always going to try," Adam snaps back. "If he really wanted us to start talking again, he had to know he was going to get one shot. And he fucked it up, David. He fucked his chance up right away. So no. No, maybe I'm not really interested in how _maybe_ he's changed and _maybe_ he means it when he says he's sorry. Everyone is sorry when they get caught doing something wrong. If he'd really been serious about making steps to reconcile, he wouldn't have gotten drunk and made gross comments to my boyfriend in front of me, all right?"

David just stares at him, shaking his head slowly. "He said he'd apologized to Sebastian..."

"You know, this is not the chat I came here hoping to have." It boggles Adam's mind at how things have gone so very wrong. He'd come here thinking a bit of talk and flirting with his old friend might soothe his nerves, but now he's more wound up than when he'd started. "I'd better go now."

"Adam, wait."

"No, I don't think I will." He pushes through the curtains, stomping outside to Tim's bike and unlocking it with enough fury to tear a fingernail to the quick and scratch the paint on the center bar. His legs and backside still ache as well, but Adam ignores all hurts in favor of hopping onto the bike and speeding away as quickly as possible.

He hears David calling after him in frustration, but he ignores that, too.

Adam pedals harder and harder until his lungs are burning with every breath he tries to take. And he keeps going, past the house and continuing on until he's nearly at the edge of town, slinging the bike violently left onto Burnthouse Lane. He's had to dodge three cars and a tiny old lady walking a very small dog on his ride, and the adrenaline has only amped him up more.

He finally spots his destination, a tiny little pond in the field of a long-empty farm. It's separated from the road by a row of autumn-leafless dry hedges that Adam finds easy to pick through, even more than a decade past the time he'd last broken himself a path through here. Leaving Tim's bike tucked into the thicket, Adam pokes his sore finger into his mouth and meanders down to his old thinking place.

"Damn - it - Adam -" David's remonstrating gasps are a shock, and Adam spins around, nearly sliding down the muddy slope into the pond. "You - stubborn - fuck."

"You _followed_ me?" He can be nothing but aghast and furious. "For fuck's sake, David -"

"Oh, shut up." Wearily, David tosses his own bike down and picks his way past a barren willow tree to stand by Adam at the pond's edge. "I wanted to make sure you were all right, and I figured you'd come here."

Adam looks around. "Predictable me, is that it? Just like this place. It hasn't changed," He shoves his hands into his pockets, taking care with his injured finger. "Still the same."

David scoffs and rubs at his temples. "Damn it, Adam," he says again. "You're going to be in for a long, hard week if you can't let that concept go. Seriously."

"If you came here to pick another fight," Adam begins, only to be cut off by a deeply attitudinal eye roll from David - and a rather presumptive hand over his mouth.

It's an effort, but he resists the childish urge to lick David's palm.

"I came here," David says, "to make sure you were all right or to see if I could help you on the way to being all right. Come on, Adam. Do you really want to spend this entire week dodging Brendan and annoying Chloe? Because you _will_ annoy her, it won’t take much."

Adam pries the hand off of his mouth. "I'm trying to keep the peace."

"Avoiding a perfectly solvable problem is not the only solution for that. It's not even the best solution." David brushes his hands along his trousers and sits down on the shore of the little pond. "Come on. Sit. Let's really talk."

With an eye roll of his own, Adam complies. "I just have to survive the week, David. Why can't you let me do things my way?"

"Because as per usual, your way is stupid, Adam," David informs him tartly. "I know you, I know what you’re thinking. Or not thinking, rather. Did you even stop to think why Brendan asked you to be a groomsman?"

"Because people would talk if he didn't," Adam replies just as tartly. "And Chloe made him, I'm sure."

He feels David's sympathetic eyes on him and turns away as David sighs. "Can't you entertain the notion, even for a moment, that it was an olive branch? That maybe Brendan really does want to at least get on speaking terms? When was the last time you even saw each other?"

Adam fidgets, but thinks about it. "When he left for uni."

"What?" David's voice almost breaks under its load of incredulity. "You can't be serious."

"I am, though." It still curls leaden yet acid in his stomach, the hurt of the lack of contact and the guilt of knowing full well he could have reached out, too. "He went to uni and didn't come home for a visit until after I'd gone off to America. Our visits home never overlapped. He moved back here three years ago and I haven't visited in about five years." He breathes against the ache. "We didn't communicate at all. Chloe Skypes me when he isn't around, I asked her for that. It's just..."

David reaches over to take his hand. "Just what?"

"Maybe we've left it too long," Adam admits with a wince. "We're too old. Too set in our ways. Too awkward. Why can't another week of radio silence be the best solution?"

For several moments, David opens and closes his mouth, clearly struggling for words. "I don't know," he finally says, and the defeated sadness in his voice adds to the ache in Adam's stomach. "I just think that it's better not to have the rift. If you can. I suppose it's holdover from my own life - I'm glad Dad and I got to make peace with our differences before he forgot who I am, you know? I think it's important to make that peace while you can. Make it, really make it, not fake it. You never know what could happen."

_Damn_. Adam had forgotten entirely David's reasons for returning to Ingatestone. "I'm sorry," he says, squeezing the hand holding his. "I'm sorry, David. I'm an ass."

"No. Just stubborn, bullheaded, and a number of other equally unflattering adjectives." David's smile is sweet and sad, stirring up a flutter of the old affection in Adam’s chest. "I didn't tell you that to make you feel guilty. Well, not entirely. I really only wanted you to think, to understand that you don't want to leave things like this too late, because you never know when too late will be. Not that I think you or Brendan are going to spontaneously develop early onset dementia, mind."

It makes sense. It doesn't really loosen a single brick in Adam's resolve against forgiving Brendan, not yet, but it gives him something to think about. He turns it over in his mind a bit, looking for the logic of it. "I suppose that a wedding week might be a good time for forgiveness," he concedes with reluctance, thinking of his mother and Chloe. "Everyone should be happy. Or at least trying to be."

"Not to mention I seriously don't think Chloe's going to let you avoid Brendan all week," David points out.

"No, you're right about that." It's difficult to admit, and harder to think about, but maybe...maybe it is a good idea, trying to believe Brendan has grown up. He’d thought so on the plane, hadn’t he? "I don't think I can do it tonight, though. I'm still too tense, still too mad at him about last night. But I'll try, David. It's the best I can do."

"I think it's the best anyone can ask for," David says, and that, to Adam, seems fair.

Insects chirp and rustle in the grass as the conversation falls away into a companionable silence. Adam feels the lump in his stomach loosening a bit, but he's still a little wild under the skin, still feeling like he could burst out any moment. Being home, even if he concedes change is possible, still feels confining. Like he doesn't fit here anymore. And maybe he doesn’t, and that’s the whole problem.

"What are you thinking?" David asks. "I can hear you all the way over here."

"That you can't come home again," Adam replies, watching the clouded sunbeams play on the pond's surface. "More or less. You?"

"The old days." David laughs softly. "Remember our Owl Runs before opening nights?"

"Oh, god, I'd somehow managed to forget." Adam's laughter is less soft and more rambunctious as he throws his head back. Christ, how could he have forgotten? Packs of teenage boys racing half-naked and hooting like owls through this very field in the middle of the night, you'd think that would be an indelible memory. "We were absurd. But it did help, didn't it?"

"Yes, opening night jitters did seem fairly inconsequential once you'd spent fifteen minutes acting a complete arse the night before," David agrees, voice dry as a bottle of Chardonnay but not lacking humor. "Whose idea was that, anyway?"

"I think it predated us. The dramatics society boys probably still do it." Adam sighs, looping his arms over his knees and clasping his hands together. "It sure was a way to let off steam."

David glances over. "Operative word being _was_ , of course."

"Of course." But Adam...

...Adam is getting an idea, all of a sudden. And it's _brilliant_.

"I don't like that look on your face," David says, alarm creeping in. "I know that look. No, Adam."

Jumping to his feet, Adam brushes dirt off the seat of his jeans and grins down at his ex. "No Adam what, David?"

"No, Adam, you can't go Owl Running in broad daylight, that's a completely terrible idea." David reaches up and tugs at the hem of Adam's jumper. "Sit back down, you twit. Let's just have a nice calming conversation and then we'll run back to your house for dinner and we will never mention your temporary lapse of sanity to anyone."

"Oh, we're going to have dinner and we're never going to talk about this to anyone, but this is happening, David." He pulls out of David's grip and whips his jumper over his head, dropping it to the ground. He’s more convinced of the brilliance of his idea by the minute. "Just what the doctor ordered." With a soft flumph, his long sleeved t-shirt lands on top of the jumper and gooseflesh crops up all over his torso when the damp air hits his skin. A thrill of delight zips through Adam from toes to scalp.

"No doctor would order this, they'd order you to be sectioned for it. I shouldn't be seeing this. You shouldn't be doing this." David's voice is muffled from where he's buried his face in his hands. "Adam, for the love of god, it's broad bloody daylight, you're an adult, please stop."

Kicking off his trainers, Adam gets his jeans down in moments, shoving them aside to join the rest of his clothing. After a moment's consideration, he decides to keep his socks and pants on. "God, that's invigorating."

"Yes, well, it's the middle of October, it would be at least that," David mutters, one horrified brown eye peeking up through his fingers for only a second before squinching shut again. "Oh, dear god. Adam, please reconsider this. Put your clothes back on."

"You wanted me to loosen up. I need to blow off steam.” Adam grins up into the watery gray sky, hands fisted on his boxer-shorted hips. "Beautiful day, time to get to it."

"Oh, god," is the last thing Adam hears before he takes off running, whipping his cap off and flinging it into the sky.

The lingering aches in his legs and back end melt away as he stretches out into a good lope across the field. The farm to which the field belongs is long unoccupied, but the field is kept mowed down and tidy all the same, no cow pats or overly long grass to impede him. A long stretch of clean field is all that lies between him and the tree that marked the turnaround for them as teenagers. _Invigorating!_ he thinks with a mad joy, feeling as though he could fly.

When he rounds the tree, leafless limbs stretched gray towards the sky and a lazy, curious pigeon observing him from its perch, he spots David back at the other end of the field, waving his arms frantically. _What, is he wanting to join me now? Too late, I'm halfway back and not doing another lap._ One was enough, he feels considerably more calm and strangely happy, the fire of aggravation now banked under his skin for the moment. Triumphant, Adam opens his mouth to let out a wild hoot.

But then he realizes why David is waving. David isn't interested in a run, David is warning Adam that they're no longer alone.

_Huh_ , he thinks as he approaches. _I know that woman, don’t I? That looks like Jane Fielding from school. What's she doing out here? And dressed as a constable?_

__

_...oh._

__

***

  
"I can explain," Adam tells Tim from behind the door of his holding cell at Brentwood Police Station. "Really."

"You are a 32 year old man in a long term relationship who part owns a small business. You really, really can't explain." His brother presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose and looks over them at where Adam is standing sheepishly in the cell, still clad only in his socks and boxers. "Not to mention, I do not want to know. At all.”

“I _can_ explain,” Adam offers again, not at all sure he can come up with a _good_ explanation, but absolutely positive he can come up with _some_ kind of explanation.

“No. No, believe me, that’s just fine, please don’t.” Taking several deep breaths, Tim finally brings his hand down and pulls his shoulders back, very obviously steeling himself for his next round of questioning. “Why are you still mostly naked? Why haven't they given you your clothes back?"

“Ah.” This explanation, Adam is less eager to give, if only because in his mind, it’s actually more ridiculous than getting arrested for public indecency. "You must not have recognized my arresting officer. Janey Fielding decided that this was the perfect opportunity to get revenge for me throwing water balloons at her on Easter Sunday twenty years ago."

Tim stares. “And what was Janey Fielding doing in Ingatestone?”

“It's part of her patrol. Besides, you know that movie with the policemen and the escaped swan?”

“Yes…” Never in his life has Tim looked more like he regrets opening this conversation or, indeed, answering David’s call to go pick his younger brother up in the first place.

Adam shrugs. “There was an escaped swan. Janey does have to uphold the law. We had a laugh about that.”

“Jesus Christ.” And Tim’s fingers are pinching at his nose again, his eyes now tight shut. "Back to your clothes. Twenty years is a long grudge to hold for a wet Easter dress."

Adam fidgets with the pillow covering his boxer-clad lower half. "There may have been red food dye in some of the balloons."

At last, Tim is rendered utterly and completely speechless, and all he can apparently do is stare at Adam for so long that Adam starts to fidget again, looking away from his brother and hoping that it ends soon, that Tim will get them to let him go free and they can go home and, as David had suggested and Adam now heartily wishes he’d heeded, forget about this momentary lapse of sanity.

"You know what? Never mind. You got off light.” Tim gestures to the officer with the keys. “Come on, Captain Flash. Let's get you home."

Within ten minutes, Adam is clothed again and let off with a grinning admonition from Janey Fielding to stay that way - at least in public - for the remainder of his visit. No charges are pressed and rather than a fine, Janey suggests he make a generous donation to the Lifeboat box on the front desk. Which he does as quickly as possible before slumping in sheepish embarrassment out the door behind Tim.

“I’m sorry about your bicycle,” he says as they get into the van. “David said he’d go out with his delivery truck and pick it up so he could bring it back when he comes for dinner.”

Tim starts the van, looking straight ahead as they drive off. “Not a problem. I’m just glad it got used. I’m not getting much cycling time in with school, and the rugby team, and the Scouts, and keeping track of Bex and Rhi.”

Actually hearing the litany of Tim’s schedule from the horse’s mouth makes Adam start in surprise. “You sound...incredibly busy, Tim.”

“Yes, but going to pick up my half-naked little brother is actually almost a refreshing deviation from routine.” For a moment, Tim looks over at Adam and offers a lopsided smile. “Shakes things up. You weren’t waiting long, right?”

“No…” Something’s not right, and Adam can’t quite put his finger on it. Apart from the fact that he and Tim are, once again, talking as if nothing had ever gone wrong, that is, but he’ll address that later. He feels better about doing so with Tim than he does Brendan.  “Tim. Are you okay?”

Tim’s eyes slip away from the road again for a split second, and the smile turns into a frown. “Of course I am. Why, do I not look it?”

“No, no you look fine,” Adam hastens to say. “I just mean, you know, you work a lot, from the sound of it. And sure, work ethic is fine and all, god knows Sebastian and I are well acquainted with the excesses of our own workaholism.”

Tim’s frown doesn’t abate. “Right…”

Adam sifts through his memories and his impressions of the last day, trying to fit puzzle pieces together. Whatever he wants, the one thing that’ll make a full picture, seems just out of reach. _Well, I’ve only been here a day, after all. And it’s not like I know Tim these days, is it?_ “I just want to make sure you’re, you know, okay. And not working too much. Keeping yourself busy for some reason.” He feels lame saying it, for even bringing it up.

“You’re as nosy as Mum and the twins.” Tim’s tone is light, but there’s a current of edge there that warns Adam to back off. A warning he is inclined to heed right now. “I’m fine, Adam. I like to be busy. I like all the things I do. Believe me, I’m fine.”

_Believe me, you’re fibbing._ But Adam has no right to pry and he knows it. _Why am I worried about it, anyway? All I have to do is survive the week. I shouldn’t get muddled in with everyone else’s issues. I have my own_. He puts on a smile as they roll into Ingatestone. “Okay. Just making sure.”

“Well, I appreciate you looking out.” To Adam’s relief, Tim’s got his own smile back on - some of it, at least. “I know I helped make your life miserable as a kid, you know? You’d have every right to not give two shits about me.” His smile expands the tiniest smidgen. “You always were the nice one.”

Since Adam had expected to be the one to bring up the past, he’s taken aback. “Oh, I. Well, you know, it’s not -”

“Don’t say it’s not a big deal,” Tim warns, lifting one hand off the wheel to point at Adam, but never taking his eyes off the road. “I’m one of _those_ teachers now, you know, with the eyes in the back of my head and apparent psychic capabilities. I know I was a shit, and I know it bothered you. Can’t change that. But I can apologize and be a better brother now, and I appreciate that you grew up and _stayed_ the nice one. Okay?”

Adam looks around, wonders what he’s supposed to say, what he can say. “Okay,” he says in the end, in the absence of anything more useful or articulate. “I appreciate your apology, and, okay, I accept it.” He lifts his hand to try in vain to smooth the frown wrinkles he knows are accumulating at his brow. Kurt would have a fit to see him. “And thanks for coming to get me.”

“You really are welcome,” Tim replies. “But you also really should know that I am absolutely judging you right now. Owl Running in the middle of the day, Adam? For the love of god.”

“How do you know about Owl Running?” Adam asks, not even trying to stop his mouth from falling open like a codfish.

“Told you. I’m one of _those_ teachers. Not that you dramatics guys were as secretive or as subtle as you all thought you were in the first place.” Tim laughs. “For a bunch of good actors, you were really shit liars.”

“Oh my god.” Adam clutches a handful of his jumper near his throat , completely amazed. And slightly horrified, if he’s being honest. “Oh, my god. My entire existence is a lie.”

“Your entire existence continues to _be_ an existence because I did know and didn’t tell Mum, you enormous drama queen. And you’re welcome.” Pulling in to the driveway of the house, Tim shuts off the van and winks before hopping out. “I’ve said too much.”

It takes Adam several moments of open-mouthed staring before he finally forces himself to move and follow Tim - now laughing uproariously at the look on Adam’s face - into the house.

They’ve interrupted the chamber trio. Rebecca pauses in bowing to blink at them in curiosity. “What’s so funny?”

“Well, you’re looking at Adam’s face,” Tim says, choking down his laughter with a little work. His cheeks are still pink with the exertion. “That’s not funny?”

“Not as funny as the text message Stuart Peters got from his cousin Janey in the middle of our French exam,” Rhiannon drawls from her perch in the window seat. Setting the homework she’s working on aside aside, she uncurls and gets to her feet, ambling over to grin up at Adam. “Were you really arrested for streaking at the old Henderson farm?”

Huh. Being judged by a quartet of teenagers is a lot more unnerving than he could ever have imagined. “You know, I think I need to get upstairs.”

“And you all need to wrap up your practice within the next 45 minutes so that I can take Hayley and Tristan home,” Tim informs the group, distracting them enough so that Adam can slip out of the front room. “And once again, Rebecca, Hayley, seriously, I don’t mind the long goodbye, but try to keep it somewhat reasonable and, if you will, not actually in front of me. Some things a brother is not meant to see.”

“Yes, Tim,” the girls chorus without sincerity as Adam escapes.

He doesn’t quite make it past the kitchen. Moira pokes her head out, cordless phone in hand and a rather mystified expression on her face. "Adam, Sheila Fielding just called me with the most extraordinary story, she says Janey told her -"

"Mum, I'll have to explain later." Great. He hadn’t expected that Janey would all but send out a Facebook blast to the entire town, but then again, why not? This had to be the most exciting thing this particular corner of Essex had seen in years that didn’t involve livestock. Everyone would be talking about it at the wedding, and Chloe would suffocate him in the wedding cake. Fantastic. “I’m going upstairs.”

The walk up the stairs seems much, much longer than usual, possibly because the weight of whatever the hell he can tell Sebastian about this is dragging his feet and nailing them to the carpet. Honesty, obviously, is best, but oh god, Sebastian is going to laugh at him, he just knows it.

_I think I finally understand what it is Sebastian has against Mondays._

__

When Adam finally pushes open the door to their bedroom, he sees Sebastian sitting at his old desk, concentrating hard on something on his laptop. He looks up in surprise as Adam stomps across the room. "Hey, ba -"

"I got arrested for streaking," Adam blurts, throwing his beanie down on the desk before flopping face down onto the bed. "Thought you ought to know."

A raucous peal of laughter from the laptop gets his attention and makes him jerk his head back up to stare, however. "My mother," Sebastian begins, clearly struggling to not laugh himself, "says hello. By the way."

"Oh, god." Adam shoves his head under the pillows. Now it’s gone fucking global. "Hello, Anne."

"I was just leaving," Anne Smythe's voice says, audibly shaking with mirth. "I've got my Criminal Defense class coming in. Did you need any sort of legal assistance for your..." Her giggles come fast and hard. "Predicament? We could turn it into the class topic of the day, all these budding lawyers could use the practice."

"That won't be necessary," Adam groans, pulling the pillows down tighter over his ears and hoping he suffocates.

Sebastian lets a chuckle slip loose, but only one. “Mom, I’ll talk to you later, okay? Have a good class, say hi to Dad for me.”

“Will do. You two let me know if you need…” Anne giggles again. “Anything at all. Love you, boys.”

“Love you, too.” The laptop is clicked shut and, a few quiet steps later, Adam feels the bed shift next to him. “So. Arrested. For streaking. Babe, we've been here a _day_."

"Shut up, I know, it seemed like a good idea at the time." Why won't his bed open up and swallow him whole? "Half the town already knows. Can we just get on a plane and go home?"

Sebastian lays down next to him, scooching his hip on Adam's until Adam straightens up and stops hogging the bed. "Bad plan. Chloe will kill you. I mean, come after us in New York and kill you. Possibly me too for helping."

"She's going to kill me anyway, everyone's still going to be talking about it by the time Saturday gets here." Pulling the pillows off his head, Adam aims a plaintive stare at his very beloved boyfriend. "Unless you help me out by doing something even more outrageous. Or even just a _little_ outrageous; you're an American, a little goes a long way on the gossip mill for Americans here."

"I love you a lot, but I'm not sure it goes that far, babe." Sebastian leans over to kiss his cheek. "I'm not really into deliberately making myself look like an ass in public these days. Even for you." He kisses Adam again, chuckling when Adam allows himself to grumble. "Aw. Babe, I really do love you. But suck it up."

"Such a romantic," Adam grumbles as he stuffs his head back under the pillows.

Sebastian ignores the jibe, letting his fingertips play up and down Adam’s arm. “I have to know,” he begins, shifting so that he can insinuate his fingers under the pillow and tickle Adam’s ear. “What the hell brought this on? It’s not like you. I mean, I understand the urge to run around naked in public, god knows I've done it, but you’re supposed to be the sane one."

Shaking off Sebastian’s hand, Adam pulls the pillow off of his face to gaze at Sebastian in astonishment. "Where exactly have you run naked through the streets?"

Sebastian’s tongue makes a couple of revolutions inside his cheek while he thinks. "Reykjavik, Philadelphia, New Haven, Pamplona and the one that started it all, Columbus.” He half-shrugs. “The Warblers had their traditions. But I never got arrested for it."

This is endlessly fascinating. One official year in and they’re still finding out things about each other. "Pamplona? Really?"

"You know how they have the Running of the Bulls?"

"Yes..."

"One year a bunch of us Dalton alumni decided to have a Running of the Balls."

Adam lets his mouth drop open. “That is terrible. I don’t even know if that counts as a pun.”

“We were drunk on Rioja when we came up with it,” Sebastian says, lifting his chin. “It seemed really funny at the time. To be fair, _balls_ was funny until I went to grad school.” He pauses. “You didn’t answer my question.”

With a sigh that comes from the very soles of his feet and drags through his body like it’s stomping him flat, Adam flips over onto his back, choosing to look out the window onto the back garden rather than see Sebastian’s face when he explains. “I was with David -”

Sure enough, the very air that surrounds them seems to go perfectly still, and the bed jolts the tiniest amount as Sebastian’s body goes rigid. “You did this with David?”

“Let me explain,” Adam says, reaching over to grab a hand that’s instantly pulled away. Now he rolls his head back to look at Sebastian, to face the jealousy he knew would be there. “No, I did not do this with David. David happened to be there, and I can promise you he rather wished he wasn’t.”

Sebastian’s throat works as he swallows, and his face doesn’t relax. “Was it his idea?”

“No. He tried to talk me out of it.” When Adam reaches for Sebastian’s hand again, this time it doesn’t slip out of his fingers. “Sebastian, this was all me. David was an innocent bystander.” He wills Sebastian to believe him, for the jealousy to fade from his eyes and smooth out the frown on his face. Another side effect of this entire disaster he should have really thought about. “It was stupid. I was at David’s shop, Brendan came in…”

That makes Sebastian perk up a little with what looks like it might be interest. “Did you talk to him?”

“No. I can’t. Not yet.” He lets his fingers play in and around Sebastian’s, concentrates his vision on the sight of their hands linked together. “I didn’t want to. David thought I should, and he pushed me on it a little too hard -”

“Not so innocent, then.” The edge of steel is back in Sebastian’s voice.

“Oh, hush, darling. He meant well. But that doesn’t make me less angry at Brendan or more ready to talk to him...so I left in a bit of a huff, I’m afraid. Ran out to this place I used to go to, to think.” He lays their joined hands over his chest. “David followed me, and...I don’t know, Sebastian. I lost my head a bit, I suppose. Not at David, or anything to do with him. I’ve just been feeling like I wanted to crawl out of my skin since we got here, honestly.”

Sebastian scoots down so that they’re facing each other, heads resting on the same pillow. “Ah.”

“What’s that mean, ‘ah’?”

“It means that when we talked last night, you did your English thing and totally underplayed how you were feeling.” He nods. “I knew it.”

“I didn’t underplay so much as refused to deal with it when we were both exhausted,” Adam protests. “I didn’t expect things to go so spectacularly wrong before I did get a chance to talk to you again.”

Sebastian does not look like he entirely believes this, but lets it go. “All right.”

“Anyway, the whole thing was sort of this schoolboy tradition we used to do back in dramatics society, to settle our nerves before opening night. David inadvertently reminded me of it and for one bright shining moment, it seemed like an excellent idea.” Part of him, the part that is a little less electrified with nerves now, still rather thinks it was. “And that brings us to now and how it wasn’t exactly my best moment, in the end.”

“No, but it’s going to make a fantastic story to hold over your head the next time I do something stupid.” Some of Sebastian’s good humor seems to return at that, his grin filling Adam with dread. “I almost can’t wait to make an idiot out of myself again just so I can bring it up. I think I’m going to win all of our arguments forever.”

Adam raises an eyebrow. “Running of the Balls?”

“You weren’t there, you can’t prove a thing.” Sebastian hasn’t looked this pleased with himself in a long time, and if it weren’t at Adam’s expense, he might appreciate it a little more.

“Enough. It’s done, it’s ridiculous, and I will never hear the end of it anyway.” He shakes his head. “Tell me how your day with Chloe went. Was it nice?”

Sebastian pulls a wry smile. “Well, there was sheep shit involved, and I guess ‘nice’ depends on how much fun you find shoveling that to be.” Propping his head on his hand, he starts stroking his fingers over Adam’s again. “But I got some nice photos of her at work once she washed most of the crap off. Amazing how black and white film can hide a multitude of sins. It doesn’t hurt that she’s photogenic as hell.”

“She always was.” Memory makes Adam smile, really smile, for the first time in hours. “Are these photos going into a scrapbook or something?”

“An online one, a sort of slideshow thing they’re going to show at the rehearsal dinner. We’re mixing new photos in with old ones.” His hand stills. “That means I’m going to have to spend some time with Brendan, as well. Taking new photos of him.”

It is a superhuman effort, but Adam does just manage to resist the urge to lock Sebastian in the bathroom and refuse to let him out until after the wedding. “I suppose you must. A wedding is for two people, after all.”

“Yeah.” Pulling his hand back, Sebastian rolls onto his stomach, piling his hands together to rest his chin on. “He came by the farm today.”

_That’s right. He mentioned that to David, didn’t he?_ “Did he?”

“He brought us lunch.” Sebastian shifts his eyes in a sidelong glance. “He apologized. To me, I mean. For last night.”

So it was true. _It doesn’t mean he meant it. Anyone can say they’re sorry._ “I suppose that’s uncommonly nice of him,” Adam replies, trying his damnedest to stay neutral, to not run as far away as he can get the both of them from here. “Then again, being Chloe’s fiancé and all, he does rather have a substantial interest in keeping the peace this week himself, perhaps. I would. She can be a terror.”

“I guess.” Sebastian’s mouth twists. “I wasn’t really expecting him to do it. He was a completely different person today than he was last night. Which, okay. Alcohol will do that.” He goes silent, face still in thought. “Chloe said he’d changed. Not since last night, I mean, just. In general.”

“David brought up the possibility as well.” Adam sits up, leaning against the wall. “Do you believe it?”

“He’s your brother, not mine. What do I know?” A frown. “Although he does seem to like kittens, and people who like kittens are usually all right, right?”

“I...suppose.” _What a day this has been. I’m supposed to live through six more just like it?_ “I don’t guess it matters. We just have to get through this week.”

“Without punching your brothers,” Sebastian agrees. “I want to add to that. We also have to get through the week without another arrest.”

Adam groans. “Never going to hear the end of it.”

“You are probably right, babe.” Wriggling to sit upright, Sebastian wraps his arms around Adam and nuzzles behind Adam’s ear. “Oof, someone needs a shower.”

“Someone needs a _bath_ ,” Adam corrects, wincing as his sore muscles reassert themselves. “Do you think I have time for a long soak before dinner? Maybe a massage?” He tries to look as pathetic yet adorable as he can muster, knowing Sebastian is frequently unable to resist adorable. “You give the _nicest_ massages and my _everything_ hurts.”

Sebastian’s gaze slides up to the poster covered ceiling and his eyes narrow in the general direction of a smiling Mark Owen. “Maybe…”

Adam amps up the pathetic and even bats his eyes. “Pleeeeeeeease? I’ll love you forever.”

“Don’t you already?” The tone is arch, but Adam’s efforts pay off as Sebastian relents. “Yes. Okay. Go get in the tub. I will go find out from your mother when dinner is happening and see how much time I can buy us.”

“You’re the best,” Adam informs him with a kiss.

“Oh, I know.” With a wink, Sebastian slides off the bed and out the bedroom door.

Adam moves with considerably more slowness to get off the bed, wincing with every step to the bathroom. _I’ve lost count of the number of bad ideas I’ve had today_ , he thinks ruefully, biting back a howl of agony when he bends down to put the plug into the tub drain. _The bike ride is definitely number one._

__

_Although. Half-naked in a jail cell…_

__

_It’s a toss up._

He gets the water going and eases himself down to sit on the lid of the toilet with another wince. _Six more days_. If this first day is any indicator, however, he has no idea how they’ll get through it. Nagging friends, adorably troublesome sisters, bad ideas, one brother Adam can’t get a read on and another swinging back and forth between behaving as badly as expected and acting like a potential productive member of the human race - he’d seen a lot coming out of this week, but exactly none of it had been this.

And it’s only Monday?

_We’re all going to die._

**  
  
  
**


	7. Inside Out And Upside Down

It's the smell that awakens Sebastian. Cinnamon rolls. He's sitting up before he even opens his eyes, swinging his legs over the side of the bed before it hits him.

He's alone.

Sebastian blinks over his shoulder at the empty side of the bed. Adam had to have climbed over him to get out - which, fine, he's glad he apparently slept like a log for the first time since they got here - but a glance at the clock across the room shows that it's barely after seven in the morning. The expanse of bed by the wall is cold when he lays his palm on it, so Adam's been up for a while.

_What?_

Working very hard to ignore the olfactory siren call of cinnamon pastry, Sebastian flops back down and slips under the duvet again. He'd like to say that it's not weird that Adam's up early on a day off, but that would be about as honest as saying he's gotten used to the Take That shrine over his head. Sebastian's mouth twists to the side as he contemplates the pride of place poster, a full wall length picture of someone Adam says, with suspicious stars in his eyes as he does so, is named Jason.

Sebastian glares up at Jason-whoever-he-is while he mulls over his problems. And there are problems. Well, one problem, but it’s big enough to count as at least a few: Adam has been behaving...well. Like a teenager. A mood-swingy, secretive, occasionally sullen then inexplicably manic teenager.

Which is not, it must be said, what Sebastian ever signed on for.

First there was the insane streaking incident on Monday, which Sebastian is still trying to wrap his head around. Then Tuesday, when he'd walked into the Crawford kitchen to find Adam and Chloe in the middle of a frosting fight, pink and coral tinted buttercream in their hair and all over their clothes and covering so much of the kitchen itself that Moira had basically turned purple with rage upon seeing it. And then Tuesday night, when they'd found out Brendan was coming to dinner with Chloe, Adam had announced previously unknown plans for himself and Sebastian to head into London for dinner and a show.

Chloe had glared in such a way that Sebastian was more glad than usual he wasn't Adam, and Tim had muttered under his breath during the entire time he'd driven them over to the Ingatestone train station.

Dinner had been a decent if less than romantic stop at a kebab stand. And the show they’d ended up seeing? A West End revival of _Cats_. Which has never been Sebastian’s favorite...anything. Ever. But it was the only available show that fit their already squeezed budget.

And through it all, three days running now, is this: it is 7 in the morning and Adam is once again up bright and early when he doesn’t have to be. He’d tried saying yesterday that it was because of his mother, but Moira’s been holed up in her study when she isn’t over at Alden Farms helping Chloe and her mother finish up organizing the wedding. No, Adam is up early every day because he’s too wound up to relax, and that’s a big red flag to Sebastian, who is used to Adam being so zen, the Dalai Lama would be hard-pressed to out-mellow him.

It's strange. It's bizarre and strange and unsettling. Adam had been afraid that his family would scare Sebastian off, but they're not the Crawfords that are alarming him at the moment. And so Sebastian has made a decision.

Chewing a little at his lower lip, Sebastian slides out from under the duvet and shuffles over to the desk, flipping his laptop open and tapping in the password to unlock it even as he sits down. Because now with them halfway through the week and Adam showing no signs of returning to being himself, Sebastian has realized that he is in way, way over his head. He knows this because last night he actually tried talking his problems out with the Jason poster, and while Sebastian is freely willing to admit that he’s often lacking the healthiest self-awareness, even he knows that’s probably not good. He needs an actual person with whom to discuss this, someone with qualifications on paper rather than someone whose only qualification is that they are paper.

 _It's after 7 here so...2 am at home...I hope there's an answer anyway._ He'd sent an email out last night before he joined Adam in bed, when midnight was 7 in the evening back in Manhattan and dinner was starting to dance with the antacids he’d just swallowed down. _I know she checks her work email at night but how late...?_

Late enough, he sees to his relief.

 

 **From:** maritza.marin@thepracticeatcloisters.com

 **To:** sebastian@orionsbeltphotography.com

 **Re:** Discussion

_Sebastian -_

_Of course I'll be glad to have a quick meeting with you - and Skype is fine. I'm free at noon my time for an hour. Will that be sufficient?_

_\- Dr. Marin_

 

Sebastian does the math. That will be 5 PM his time. If he can find someone to occupy Adam, that should be fine. And that shouldn't be a problem - at 5 PM he'll have his pick of either twin or Tim, possibly Moira or Stephen, and if he can manage it without Brendan coming along, Chloe. He discards that last nearly immediately; there's probably no chance of leaving Brendan out at this point, Chloe is too mad at Adam and too determined to mend fences between the brothers. And while Sebastian is slowly coming around to the idea of Adam and Brendan at least talking, it's not something that should be forced, especially not with Adam as on-edge and in denial about it as he is.

He sets Moira and Stephen aside as well. Moira, like Chloe, will want to talk to Adam about Brendan, plus she'll be nosy about why Sebastian wants time to himself. Motherly nosiness is understandable, but Sebastian doesn't want to worry her. Stephen might work as a last resort, but may also be primed by Moira to ask about Brendan, so...no. Better not.

Tim is probably the best and most reliable bet - Sebastian has learned quickly that taciturn Tim isn’t inclined to ask questions and he goes on a walk before dinner every night anyway. He's followed in suitability by the twins, who seem to be experts in the sort of distracting mischief that would be useful. Sebastian makes a mental note to try and catch Tim when he and the twins come home from school. Unless something better comes along before then.

The smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls has grown more intense and can no longer be ignored - nor should it be, now that he feels like he has some kind of help on the way. Sebastian locks his laptop and slides off the desk chair, grabbing a sweatshirt to pull on as he meanders downstairs.

In the kitchen doorway he comes to a dead stop, frowning in confusion when he sees who’s there. "Um..."

Tim and David offer smiles from the breakfast table. “Surprise. I’m off for the rest of the week,” Tim volunteers. “Too much to do and it’s not like Brendan or Chloe can just tell the animals to hang on a few days and don’t go having any emergencies. Supply teachers at least can follow a lesson plan, so I’m Errand Man and I get paid in cinnamon rolls.”

“And I’m just here because I was told there would _be_ cinnamon rolls,” David adds as Sebastian resumes his puzzled amble into the kitchen. His smile dimples his cheeks and makes him look way better than he has any right to at this hour, Sebastian notes with a confusing mingling of interest and irritation. “I think it may be an attempt at bribery, though.”

“It’s not bribery, it’s breakfast,” Adam calls over from his station at the counter, where he’s carefully drizzling sugar icing over the pan of warm rolls. When Sebastian wraps his arms around Adam’s waist, Adam smiles and leans back into the embrace before continuing on the conversation. “That’s all it is. Breakfast. Good morning, darling.”

“Morning.” A broad smile covers his guilt over his evening plans and a quick kiss before he snatches up Adam’s cup of coffee and makes off with it distracts from any jittery tremors Adam might have felt in the morning hug. “I’d have slept in, but I never sleep in when there’s cinnamon rolls.”

“It is the one absolutely reliable way to get you out of bed in the morning,” Adam agrees. A plate of cinnamon rolls appears in front of Sebastian, a kiss is planted on his cheek, and Adam sweeps away, having rescued his coffee. “Coffee or tea, love?”

Sebastian tears into half a roll before answering. “Tea would be great, if it’s not too much trouble.” He tries to push away the guilt at feeling like he’s going behind Adam’s back with Dr. Marin. It’s hard, though, when Adam is being his loving, kind, generous self...at 7:30 in the morning.

David reaches over to grab a cinnamon roll. “So, _Cats_?”

“We have dogs,” Sebastian answers absently around a mouthful of pastry, half his mind still on his upcoming betrayal. “But I like cats all right.”

Tim snorts out a laugh, but David is, fortunately, distinctly more polite. In that sort of way that Sebastian wishes he didn’t find so appealing but here they were. “No, sorry, I should have been more clear, it’s too early for shortcuts. Adam says you went to see _Cats_ last night?”

“Oh.” That...makes more sense. Dull heat burns in Sebastian’s cheeks. “Yeah, yeah, right. _Cats_. It was all right, you know, for a musical about cats in a junkyard. It was nice just to see London again, I haven’t been there since I was in high school.”

David nods, smile still adorable and Sebastian wonders if Adam isn’t the only one with a problem because seriously what the hell? He shakes it off as David goes on with his radio announcer’s voice and _Downton Abbey_ manners. “Yes, Adam has said you were well traveled and even lived in France for a while? Your family must be interesting.”

“Well, they’re lawyers, I guess that’s interesting. Well, Dad's an attorney, Mom’s a law professor, you know, I mean, we moved around a lot.” Christ, between his nerves about Adam and the weird schoolboy crush on David that keeps rearing its ugly head at the worst times, Sebastian’s hardly able to string two words together to make a coherent thought. He’s wound so tight that he nearly leaps into the air when Adam comes from behind to give him another kiss and a squeeze. “Hi! Hello. Sorry. Hi!”

Adam chuckles. “Hello again, Mr. Twitchy.” He squeezes harder, nibbling lightly along Sebastian’s neck for a moment before picking up a smaller plate of cinnamon rolls he’d set down on the table. “Listen, I’m going to take these to Mum, she’s stuck right into her revising and I know she hasn’t had breakfast. I figure you’ll be all right with Tim and David for a minute. I’ve got your tea here.” He taps at a big blue ceramic mug. “Milk and sugar, just the way you like. Okay?”

He’s being so _sweet_. For a minute Sebastian wrestles again with his decision to contact Dr. Marin. Maybe he’s overreacting, maybe he does just need to get through this week, maybe both of them do and it’ll all be _fine_ …

“I thought you and David and I could hang out tonight,” Adam calls over his shoulder as he disappears through the kitchen door. “Order Thai food, watch movies…think about it!”

Sebastian looks at David and Tim, who are shaking their heads and rolling their eyes at each other. “So,” he begins, reaching with one hand for his tea and the other for the other half of his cinnamon roll. “What time are Brendan and Chloe coming over tonight, then?”

“Six,” David replies, his face all over gloom. “I knew the cinnamon rolls were a bribe.”

“If I didn’t like the twins so well,” Tim informs the ceiling with a sigh, “I’d wish to god I had been born an only child. I firmly believe I have the great misfortune of being stuck in the middle of the two most stubborn and idiotic brothers anyone has ever had.” He throws his hands in the air. “It’s the Cunningham side of things, of course, Mum’s always telling us about her great uncle Pàdraig, family legend says he was too cheap to hire anyone to help him pull this falling apart stone shed thing on his land, so he did it himself with his own two hands and it took him -”

Sebastian ignores Tim and lays his head down on the table. “I’m not going to survive the week.”

“Oh, you might,” David says, “but I don’t think Brendan and Adam will. Chloe is officially on a rampage already, tonight will just cement it.”

It’s nice, down here on the table. The tablecloth is soft against his cheek. Sebastian thinks about staying here forever. No wedding, no movie night with David, no Crawfordpocalypse with the charge led by Chloe. Just a nice quiet permanent nap on this table in this room filled with the marvelous smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls.

It sure beats the bathroom he usually locks himself into.

But no. This is not a permanent solution, no matter how fervent his wish. Sebastian heaves himself upright and leans across the table, no longer second-guessing his decision. "Listen," he begins, flexing his fingers nervously around his coffee cup as David and Tim lean in to meet him, curious and expectant. "Actually, turns out I _really_ need to get Adam out of the house tonight before 5 PM. Until 6 or past it - and no questions asked. Just...I really need that hour. Now more than ever. Can one of you help me?"

David's head is already shaking, but at least he looks regretful about it. "I'm taking Mum over to the home to spend time with Dad tonight. Which I would have told Adam had he actually run his plan by me before announcing it to you. Not that I don’t like the idea of a movie night, or of helping you. I’d do both if I could."

"I'll do it." Tim leans back in his chair, gnawing on a toothpick. "No problem. I can get him out of your hair for two hours and then some, actually."

"One is sufficient - god, thank you." It was so easy. How even? "How can you manage it?"

"I'm supposed to take the twins to the cinema tonight to give them a break from all the work they're doing for the wedding." Tim shrugs. "I'll make Adam go with us."

Sebastian frowns, not sure how that can even work. Adam doesn't do anything he doesn't want to without excellent reason, as the last three days have more than amply demonstrated. "How?"

"You really are an only child, aren't you?" Tim is chuckling hard and grinning wide.

"Yeah..." He doesn't see what that has to do with anything.

"I'm the big brother. I say come with, and he'll come with. It's the magic of family ties." Another shrug. "Besides, he still owes me major for Monday."

No. It seems _too_ easy. Or maybe Sebastian’s just overreacting because his perception is turned inside out. He’s a naturally suspicious person anyway, but the way this week has been, he’s surprised he can still differentiate down from up. “I would have thought you’d be more on the side of keeping Adam here to meet up with Brendan, to be honest.”

“Normally, maybe, since I think they’re both being incredibly stupid. But you asked for my help getting him out of the house. You’ve got it.” Tim shrugs again, tossing the toothpick down onto the table. “You’re all but one of us Crawfords already, Seb. Reap the benefits. We’ve got three, four days to the wedding, that’s plenty of time to sort Bren and Adam out, no matter what Chloe thinks. So today, you have my help. And not just because it’s going to be fun putting Adam through a night out with our teenaged sisters.” His head cocks towards the door. “Oop. Footsteps. Everyone be casual.”

By the time Adam sails back into the kitchen, Tim’s found a newspaper, David is rubbing the back of his neck and taking a deep interest in the floral pattern on the tablecloth, and Sebastian is stuffing his mouth full of more cinnamon roll. Casual, indeed. But it seems to work, as Adam drops down into a chair with his coffee and a smile, nudging at Sebastian’s arm. “So, you, me, David? Tonight?”

The caffeine Sebastian has managed to get down hasn’t gotten to his brain fast enough to stop a particularly dirty mental image from popping up at that point, and confused panic leaps directly to his throat. “Actually,” he squeaks out, and gets completely stuck.

Smooth.

Tim brings the newspaper down on the table with a crackle and a slap. “Actually, I’m stealing you for assistant chaperone duty tonight, Adam. Sorry.” He’s obviously not sorry in the slightest, and Adam stares in astonishment, jaw dropped.

“No,” he begins, pulling himself back together with remarkable speed. “Sorry, no, I have plans.”

David shakes his head. “No, you actually don’t. Now I'm the sorry one. It’s my night with Mum and Dad. If you’d asked me, I’d have said.”

And Adam’s jaw drops again, and he turns to Sebastian. “Well, darling, then you and I will go back into London, I think a revival of _We Will Rock You_ is -”

“My stomach can’t really take another night of kebabs,” Sebastian interrupts, and it’s not even a little bit of a lie. "And our budget probably shouldn't be stretched to West End tickets two nights running."

Across the table, Tim is smiling like the proverbial cat at his rather canaryesque younger brother. “Come on, Adam. You owe me for Monday, you wanted to see a movie anyway, and I’m supposed to take the twins out for dinner and a movie. They’ve been working hard for Chloe, they deserve a break.”

“Well, yes, I agree,” Adam replies, the faintest hint of an indignant sputter already beginning to color his voice. “But I fail to see why my presence is required.”

"Because the house rule is that the twins are chaperoned when they go out, and they're not going to pick the same movie." Tim's smile is almost completely innocent. "You don't have to sit next to them - and honestly with Rebecca and Hayley, you're not going to want to. 'Discreet PDA' is not a concept with which they are familiar. I'm still scarred from last time, my baby sister shouldn't know how to kiss like that."

Adam looks slightly ill, and seems to know he has already lost. He confirms it with his next statement. "If I go, I want to go with Rhiannon."

"No, you don't, she wants to see the slasher flick, and everyone at this table knows exactly how much you hate horror movies." Innocence gives way to smirking triumph. "Just don't look directly at where Becca's sitting and you'll be perfectly fine. Peripheral vision, Adam. Believe me when I say it’s your new best friend."

Outmaneuvered, Adam nearly pouts as he turns back to Sebastian. “Do you want to come along?”

“I’ve got work to do.” Sebastian marvels at how he’s managing to misdirect without having to rely on his admittedly terrible lying skills. “The slideshow thing for Friday.”

“Damn it all.” As he slumps in his chair, Adam looks like a disgruntled teenager himself. “Fine. Fine, Timothy. You win. When do we go?”

“We’ll leave here at 4:30. It’s twenty minutes to Romford, and we’ve got to eat dinner and then get to a reasonably early show. It’s still a school night for the girls, after all.” Tim pushes himself to his feet and grabs his cup of coffee. “Be out at the car by then.”

As he leaves, he drops a surreptitious wink and a thumbs up at Sebastian, and for a minute, Sebastian kind of wants to marry him.

Well. Matrimony _is_ rather in the air.

David’s up and on his feet as well. “Thank you for the cinnamon rolls, Adam. Sorry your bribe didn’t work.” He pats Adam’s shoulder.

“It wasn’t a bribe,” Adam calls after him, but he’s still slumped in his chair and the protest is half hearted at best. “It wasn’t,” he mumbles, mournful and pouting about it.

Sebastian takes pity and ignores the fact that they all know by now it totally was. “I know, babe.”

He leans on Adam’s shoulder, enjoying the comfort of the familiar, beloved presence while he chews on his breakfast and considers. He’s got his appointment with Dr. Marin who will surely have some kind of solution to the insanity that’s happening, he’s got an accomplice to get Adam out of the house so he can keep the appointment…

...and eight and a half hours to try and avoid lying to Adam or blurting everything out.

Piece of cake?

 

***

 

Chloe rescues him for a good chunk of the afternoon after he’s run out of books to read and work to do. “Photos of me and Brendan,” she orders, sweeping into the attic and interrupting Sebastian at his current gambit of _I Can’t Lie To Adam If I’ve Got My Tongue In His Mouth_.

He’s kind of semi-okay with the interruption. Adam had just rolled them over and now Sebastian’s facing the ceiling and all that staring again. Still, it's good form to at least put up a little resistance. "Now?”

“I’ll be in the loo until you leave,” Adam mutters, clearly not having gotten the good form memo. Shoving off of the bed, he heads for the bathroom.

“Brendan’s not actually here,” she calls out in exasperation. “Oh, forget it. Yes, now, please. If that’s all right.” Her blonde curls are swept up into a twisting, tumbling updo, tendrils framing her face. She’d almost look angelic if her brown eyes weren’t crackling with annoyance. She tugs the belt of her bright green trenchcoat tighter. “We’ve got about three hours with no appointments or real potential emergencies, it’s relatively sunny out, I thought we’d take advantage of that and go around to some of our favorite spots for joint photos? For the slideshow and albums.”

"That's completely okay by me." He scoots off the bed and looks around for his sneakers. "Just be a second."

"I'd ask Adam to come with but he's being a _total fucking child_ ," Chloe shrieks towards the bathroom.

"Get off my _tits_ , Bridezilla," Adam shouts back through the door, in a voice Sebastian has never once heard, not even that one time when a drunken groomsman had stumbled into the reception of a wedding they were both working and, with a smirk, deliberately faceplanted into the five tier, buttercream rose festooned, raspberry and chocolate ganache filled cake that it had taken the Sweets crew weeks to make. The bride had been in hysterics, but Adam had calmly turned the entire crushed mess into several large bowls of trifle. That sort of calm, however, is just way out the window now. "It's not your business!"

With a strenuous roll of her eyes, Chloe turns to face Sebastian, who has been shocked into immobility and sits frozen on the bed, one shoe on and one in his hand. He watches as she sashays over to a mirror on the far wall, patting at her hair. "Adam and I are not currently on speaking terms," she advises Sebastian with unnecessary obviousness, adjusting a crystal butterfly barrette that's twinkling in her updo. "Which I think should make tomorrow interesting, given that we're supposed to start baking the cake together while you take photos with Brendan."

"Right," is all he can say, shaking himself back into motion and getting his other shoe on at last. "Okay."

He's been through weddings with more difficult brides, irritating groomsmen and frankly frightening mothers and bridesmaids, but this wedding is the first one that's truly made him fear for his life and/or sanity.

The good news is that once they're out of the house and Chloe stops muttering alarming imprecations under her breath, the afternoon is fun. Most of Brendan and Chloe's favorite spots are outdoors and gorgeous, even in early fall when the skies are still a little gray. Brendan is well behaved, even funny and self-deprecating as Sebastian snaps a photo of him leaning up against the goal net at the local football pitch.

"Make me look good, eh?" He ruffles up the messy blond mop of his hat hair and flashes a charming grin. "Chicks dig the whole bashful country vet thing, you know?"

Chloe skips over and smacks his arm, but playfully since it's as clear as a spring sky that Brendan is teasing. "Less of that, thank you, future husband."

"I'm not allowed a little fun, future wife?" He grabs her arm when she doesn't skip away fast enough and hauls her in for a silly, smacking kiss that Sebastian is happy to catch on camera. "No flirting with the girls who just love a fellow with a baby animal in his arms? You're killing me, Cee."

"Nope. All mine." And she beams a sunshine smile up at Brendan that visibly melts his heart, and Sebastian is happy to commit this quiet moment of genuine love and affection to camera as well.

Brendan is an affable guy. Today, or back on Monday, even yesterday while he was getting his dress jacket adjusted at the tailor's and had cheerfully dragged Sebastian along to document it - every time Sebastian's spent even a few minutes in his company, Brendan has been nothing more than friendly and gregarious, enjoying nothing more than to talk anyone's ear off about keeping animals healthy and happy. He literally carries photos of Newton in his wallet, from puppyhood to now. He has an entire album on his phone already full of pictures of the kitten he'd nursed back to health on Monday after it nearly drowned in some neighbor's little backyard fishpond.

The kitten's name is Daisy. She sleeps on Brendan's pillow. Chloe - evidently over her opposition to Daisy, given that she's the one that named her - has the pictures of that as well, and they're heart-meltingly precious.

Sebastian unloads his full storage card and tucks it safely into his gear bag while Chloe and Brendan nuzzle at each other like...bears. Puppies. Some furry animal. He has one eye on them and one eye on loading a new card into his camera, and he has a lot to consider. Three days of exposure to Chloe has proven to him beyond doubt that she has one of the best bullshit meters he's ever seen. Which indicates to him that Brendan is the real deal, a genuinely decent guy, more of a friendly animal magnet than even Sebastian. Maybe he used to be a tyrannical jerk, and now he's not? That, as Sebastian had admitted to Chloe, is something he knows a thing or two about.

But he feels guilty for even thinking that, since it leads into wondering if Adam is being unreasonable, at least a little bit, and that feels disloyal. He believes Adam has real, genuine reasons for being upset. Adam is honest to a fault, genuinely incapable of concealing his emotions, and he has the biggest, most open heart in the world. Whatever happened between him and Brendan wounded him to his core, Sebastian believes that without question.

He just...also believes that Brendan might really want to apologize and doesn't know where to begin. Which is what Chloe and Tim have both indicated.

Well. Sorting this out is what Dr. Marin is for. And he’s got about two hours now before he has to be back at the house for their appointment.

“Smile,” he calls, startling Brendan and Chloe apart and making them laugh, smiles so wide they almost don’t fit in the frame when he snaps the picture.

  


***

 

Brendan parks the truck just outside the driveway of the Crawford house at 4:15. “Best if I don’t come in just yet,” he advises with an apology in his voice and on his face. He ducks his head to avoid Chloe’s amazingly filthy glare. “It’s not time, Cee,” he mumbles. “I’ll get to it...honest, I will…Sebastian, I’ll see you tomorrow, for the rest of the photos. Okay?”

Sebastian slips out of the truck and hits the ground just as Chloe starts winding up into a full rage. With a calm, but long-suffering smile, Brendan waves and drives off while Chloe gesticulates wildly, pointing for him to return to the house. With a resolve Sebastian envies, Brendan does no such thing, and the truck disappears down the street.

Upstairs, Adam is pulling the blue sweater Sebastian always loves on him over his head. “How’d it go?” he asks, and Sebastian knows he’s only asking for the sake of politeness and because he loves Sebastian. And Chloe. Sebastian is fully aware that as mad as Adam is at her, he still loves his childhood friend.

“It went all right.” He drops his gear bag and bends down to fish out all of the memory cards he’d filled up, scattering them on the desk with a clatter. “Lots of material for the slideshow. Good stuff, I think.”

“Naturally, it’s you taking the photos, they’ll be brilliant even if one of the subjects does happen to be an enormous footy playing ox.” Adam comes forward to take Sebastian’s face in his hands and move in for a kiss, pressing Sebastian back until the edge of the desk is biting into his thighs. “Mmm. Thank you for earlier, by the way. Lovely way to spend a couple of hours alone.”

“You’re -” When Adam’s hand slides in under the waistband of his jeans, fingers tickling light against the skin of Sebastian’s stomach, his brain shuts down, aware only of lips mouthing down his jawline, of a hand skimming his boxers with the promise and the threat of a tease, of a warm body flexing against his -

“Nicely done,” says Rhiannon from the doorway.

Adam pulls back, mouth pursed in exasperation. “Goddamn it, Rhi.”

“Sorry,” she replies, sauntering into the room and no sorrier than Tim had been that morning. “Five til, I was sent up to make sure you didn’t get distracted and forget. And oh, look. You were.”

“I didn’t forget. I just hoped Tim would.” Reaching around Sebastian, Adam grabs his cap up off the desk and shoves it onto his head. “Sure you won’t come with?”

“Sorry,” Sebastian tells him, and unlike anyone else in this house today, he actually means it. He waves his hand at the pile of memory cards. “Lots of work, little time.”

Adam sighs as Rhiannon grabs his arm and starts hauling him out the door. “Worth a shot. Love you.”

“Love you, too.” He waits for the footsteps and bickering to make it to the second floor before flipping his laptop open to unlock it and slip in the first of the memory cards. His hands are shaky and sweaty, nerves afire and stomach in knots, but he’s got to do something to pass the time or he will actually go bananas.

All but two of the cards are empty at 4:59, contents dumped onto his hard drive and sorted into folders labeled “Viable”, “Hopeless” and “Blackmail Material” when the appointment reminder rings on his phone. Taking in a handful of sharp, trembling breaths, Sebastian flips over to Skype and with unsteady fingers, clicks on the entry for Dr. Marin.

After a couple of rings, the therapist that has treated him and Adam for months fills the screen with her soothing presence, smiling brightly all the way up to her dark eyes as she pushes her black hair behind her ears. “Hello, Sebastian! How’s England?”

“It’s crazy, everything’s crazy, Adam is going nuts, I can’t deal with this,” he blurts out, immediately feeling his face burst into flames. He couldn’t have at least pretended he wasn’t hanging on by a thread for a minute? Not even ten seconds? “No. Wait. Sorry. Can I start that over again?”

Dr. Marin looks at him in surprise for one moment before she presses her fingertips together and leans forward, surveying him carefully for a long, uncomfortable stretch of time before she finally speaks. “No,” she says slowly, tilting her head to the side but never taking her eyes off of him. “No, I think that’s where you need to start, so let’s go with it. Okay? Let’s just get right into it, start with that last one and work backwards.” Her reassuring smile grows somehow even more calm and calming, and he can feel his breathing loosening just knowing that someone he can talk to about this is with him at last. Well, more or less. “You say you can’t deal with what’s going on. How true is that, really?”

He lets his shoulders drop from where they feel like they’ve been cramped up next to his ears all week. “It could be more true,” he admits. “I could be hiding in the bathroom all the time, or I could have gotten a plane home already. Obviously, these things have not happened.”

“And that’s good, I’d call that good, wouldn’t you?” Papers rustle as she goes through his file. “Have you kept up with your meds?”

“I filled the Xanax before we left, but I haven’t needed it.” The fresh bottle sits untouched in the bottom of his gear bag. “It hasn’t gotten to a point where I need that, not yet. I haven’t had any panic attacks.”

“That’s very good. Don’t let it lull you into complacency, but that’s still good.” Dr. Marin nods. “Excellent! So contrary to your greeting, do you think you might be effectively utilizing your coping mechanisms to deal with the low level, more common anxieties you’re experiencing?”

“I…” He stops to think about it. It must be true, but he doesn’t remember any specific thing he’s done apart from tell himself not to run. “I guess. Something. I’m kind of just getting on with it, maybe. I have moments, I let myself have the moments, and then I pick up and keep going.”

“Which is a normal way to deal with normal anxieties. Good. Good, good good.” Setting the folder aside, she props her chin on her hand and tilts one shoulder up into a shrug. “All things considered, Sebastian, I would actually have to say that whatever is going on, you are actually dealing with it very well. So now that we’ve settled that, why don’t you tell me what _is_ going on? Using,” she holds up her hand to stop him as he opens his mouth, “more words than, ‘Adam’s nuts,’ maybe.”

Sebastian winces in guilt at that. "Okay, that was a little, um, exaggerated."

One of Dr. Marin's graceful dark eyebrows arches. "You don't say."

Sometimes, her dry humor sets Sebastian's teeth on edge. He rubs at his jaw as his molars grind together. "It's been kind of a rough week."

Her smile doesn't falter. If anything, it twitches with a touch of amusement that he kind of resents. But - "Go on," Dr. Marin instructs quite simply, folding her hands together on her desk.

Three deep breaths and a shake of his head clear things out to make way for more linear thought and allow him to begin. "I guess he must have told you that he's had this big grudge thing going on with his brothers for years..."

Obviously Dr. Marin can't tell him anything about Adam that hasn't been discussed in one of their joint appointments, but she seems largely unsurprised by the litany of bizarre behavior that Sebastian unfurls. The streaking, the frosting fight, Adam and Brendan's childish avoidance of each other. The really terrible dinner in London. Chloe's wedding-stress fueled fury and determination to have things perfect by Saturday. Tim's exasperation.

By the time he's finished, they're halfway through their time and Sebastian is out of breath. Not to mention there's an incipient headache crackling at his temples. He tries to rub it away surreptitiously while Dr. Marin mulls over the information dump he's just laid on her.

It takes a minute or two, but at last Dr. Marin steeples her fingers in front of her face again, and it looks like she might almost be doing so to conceal, of all things, a smile. "I've been waiting for this day to come," she murmurs, bowing her head a bit.

Sebastian blinks, sure that the lumpish sensation in his throat is his heart, having leapt there in a panic over the unexpected words. "What day?"

Dr. Marin looks up, face now carefully mild. "The day that Adam finally reveals himself to be as human - and therefore as flawed - as you see yourself to be."

That makes him shake his head, budding headache be damned. "No. No, it's not that, it's just a moment -"

"A moment that's been a long time coming, Sebastian." Her mild demeanor melts into resolve as she lifts her chin to fix him with a piercing stare. "This is not to say that Adam is suddenly a bad person, if that's what you're thinking. I’m not saying that, no. It’s just that right now, he's not behaving in the most adult manner, and this is the first time you’re seeing anything like that from him. The good news is that your reaction seems to have been to step up and take the place you normally concede to him."

 _Ha. Ha ha ha ha no._ "I'm the adult now? No one consulted me on this!" He's mostly joking, but there's some real panic there that he can't hide. While he forces out a pathetic facsimile of a hearty chuckle, his hands under the desk are abruptly freezing cold and his throat is closing up. And the Xanax is just out of reach.

Dr. Marin's expression is almost - no, not almost. It's outright pity, mixed with sympathetic amusement. "Sebastian, according to my records, you'll be 27 on October 31st. You've been an adult for nearly ten years."

"No, it's..." He gropes around, trying to relax and wondering how to get what's in his head out. "Adam's more of a grown up. He's always been the rational one. He's handled my issues like he was born to it. He runs his business, he keeps me sane. I don't know why all of a sudden he's just...crazy."

"Because of stress. He's experiencing a perfectly normal - maybe a little exaggerated but mostly normal - reaction to an amount and type of stress he doesn't normally see, is my opinion. It sounds like a combination of him trying to keep his spirits up while at the same time sticking his head into the ground and attempting to ride the mess out." Her calm smile returns, briefly, before setting back into that resolve that frightens him. "Which is something I think will be good for you."

Sebastian stares at the screen. "How exactly is this going to be good for me? He's the rational one. If he loses it, we're fucked."

For the first time, a flicker of impatience goes across Dr. Marin’s face, almost too fast for Sebastian to catch it. "And this, again, brings us as always back to my firm opinion that you are just as adult and rational as Adam, and it's long past time you stopped sitting yourself in the back seat in this relationship." There's no trace of a smile to lighten the determination in her expression. "Adam has always seen you as an equal partner in this, so why haven’t you? From what we have discussed of your past, you are quite as capable of being a leader as he is."

"I was always a terrible leader," Sebastian protests. "I can admit that. I was. Selfish, awful, ruthless and a real jerk. I hospitalized someone!"

"You have the weight of age and experience behind you now." She remains implacable and still. "But you insist on thinking that your past entirely defines you and that your anxiety makes you weak, somehow less of a person and less capable of leadership than Adam. I can only tell you so many times that when you aren't thinking about it, it's actually an asset that spurs you on to do great things."

"Sure," he says, rolling his eyes.

"Look," Dr. Marin says, wagging a finger at her screen. "You think you're weak, but you chose to strike out on your own and open your own business. You say you let Adam make all the decisions, but he came to you for your opinion before deciding to buy into the bakery. You say you can't handle what is going on now, but you are coping and you quite sensibly sought out help." Now, at last, a smile tilts up half of her mouth. "When you let your true nature have its head, you are every bit as rational and a solid leader as Adam."

He shakes his head, looking for the fault in her argument. "My true nature has hurt people in the past. It’s gotten _me_ hurt. And anxiety isn't curable, or predictable, or -"

"No, and I would never say it is any of that. But anxiety is also, once again, not what defines you as a person.” He can almost feel her compassion through the screen. _She means it_ , he realizes with astonishment. These are all things she’s said before, but suddenly, after several days of his world being upside down, he’s starting to _get_ it. He just stares at her, trying to sort it all out while she goes on. “You can't help your anxiety attacks, Sebastian, but you can help how they and your other issues color your opinion of yourself. You can't change your past, but you can let it shape you into another, better person."

 _That_ was more relevant than she knew, on multiple levels, and it goes through Sebastian like an electric shock of common sense, hitting him right where he lives and then some. And of course it’s not only applicable to him. His feelings of guilt and disloyalty lift as he realizes that it might actually be okay to think that Adam is both absolutely correct and slightly unreasonable about Brendan.

Dr. Marin isn’t finished with him quite yet. While he’s still processing all of this, she’s going on. "Whether you believe it or not, you and Adam hold each other up, you complement each other well. You are not as passive as you think you are and never could be." She takes a deep breath and shakes her head. "I know you want me to tell you how to make things go back to "normal", or at least to what you've set as your baseline of normal in this relationship, Sebastian, and I'm afraid I can't do that. That genie is quite out of the bottle now."

The twin thunderbolts of realization and understanding make the world around and inside of Sebastian more calm and still than it’s been in a very, very long time. Maybe for the first time in his life, even. There’s still real nervousness there, a flock of butterflies in his stomach and the zing of electricity up his spine, but even so, he is calm, for the most part. This is not the help he wanted to get, but it is the help he is going to get. The question now is, what does he do with it?

He raises his head to meet Dr. Marin’s eyes. “What do I do now?” he asks, keeping it simple.

“What you’ve been doing, what you’ve never thought was enough but is now more important than ever, Sebastian. Love Adam. Support him. Be there for him. Be yourself, because that is who he loves and who he needs.” There’s something familiar in her expression, something he’s seen before and it takes a moment to place it. Pride. Pride, just as he’s seen in his mother’s face so many times. It warms him from the inside out as Dr. Marin goes on. "You have been letting Adam take care of you for so long. And that makes sense - you were deeply hurt, and he is by nature a person who nurtures. But _you_ are not by nature a person who is accustomed to or even very much cares to be nurtured under normal circumstances, I expect - and it's time you remembered that."

Even his hands in his lap are still now, when any other time they’d be twitching and white at the knuckles where he’d be twisting them into knots. Tendrils of self-confidence are growing, spreading like light through the dark places, slow but inexorable. “I can try.”

“I’m fairly certain you can manage it quite well.” She props her hand on her chin and her smile now is in no way a calming, compassionate smile, it’s a real beam of pride and delight. “You do understand that this is quite a breakthrough for you, right? You’ve worked so hard to get here, and it’s a good thing, Sebastian, it really is. I know it’s been a rough ride and that this week hasn’t been easy on you. I’d hazard too that it’s going to get worse before it gets better…”

“I would say you’re right about that,” he replies, unable to keep the wry twist out of the grin he can’t help. After the mess with Greg and the post-traumatic anxiety and the doubt spirals and everything that’s knotted him up and left him in such a dark place the last couple of years, it’s good to have a moment of his own in his life where he remembers what it’s like to actually feel like a functional, and even excellent, human being. He loves Adam, deeply and frighteningly, but for the first time since they met, he feels like he really might be able to be a partner and not a burden.

He feels at last like he might truly be the person Adam always tells him he sees.

That person might be able to get them both through this week.

“You’re right about that,” he repeats slowly, his grin broadening as the self-confidence keeps creeping through him. “But yeah. Yeah, I think we might actually all survive it.”

And for once, when he says it, he doesn’t feel like they’re famous last words.


	8. Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

“Drugs?” Rhiannon asks, flicking the stubbed-out butt of her cigarette far out into the back garden, getting impressive distance from the bedroom window and feeling entirely too pleased with herself for it. _It’s the little victories,_ she thinks, and smiles before turning back to her guest.

Sebastian leans back against the window frame and eyeballs her. “Are you offering? Because I’m going to say no, and then we’re going to have a talk about how drugs are bad.”

“Ugh, you are such a fucking idiot.” She reaches over to poke him in the arm with one sharp red nail. It's a good thing she likes him. "No. Have you ever done them?"

They're on their fourth or fifth cigarette since Tim and Adam had brought the twins home from the movies. Adam, with all the lack of maturity Rhiannon has come to irritatedly expect from her beloved brother, had seen Brendan and Chloe's truck still in the driveway and had grabbed the keys of the Crawford van from Tim and taken off for points unknown. Which left Rhiannon and Rebecca to go inform Sebastian that he'd been abandoned for a few more hours, as Tim was too pissed at Adam now to be reasonable at all.

Rhiannon observes Sebastian through the curtain of her hair while he mulls over her question. She feels sorry for the guy. Not that Adam isn't awesome, but there's no way Sebastian knew what he was getting into when he'd hooked up into the Crawford clan. He's having to learn some harsh lessons way too fast, not that you'd know it to look at him. After three days of being wound tighter than one of Rebecca’s cello strings, he's so laid back right now he's practically horizontal. When the twins had told him Adam wasn't coming home just yet, he'd only shrugged and said, "Well, he probably knows what he's doing," before following them downstairs to their room, where he and Rhiannon are now smoking like chimneys while Rebecca gets in some late night cello practice.

He's spending way too long thinking about what should be a simple question, though. "Hey," she says, nudging his leg with her foot. "It's not a physics question. This is a serious investigation. I need to know if you're good enough for my brother, so have you done drugs or not?”

"I'm plenty good enough for your brother," Sebastian retorts mildly. "Whether I've done drugs or not. And I'm trying to remember if I have."

Rhiannon taps her thumbnail against the filter of her new freshly lit cigarette. "You have to try to remember?"

"Drugs destroy brain cells. That's why they're bad. Keep that in mind for the future." He lies back across Rebecca's bed, drumming his fingers on his stomach while he thinks. "I went to a rave in Iceland a few years ago. I might have done ecstasy there. But apart from that, no. No drugs. I'm more of a recreational alcoholic. Or I was."

Rebecca's cello playing screeches to a halt. "You went to a rave in Iceland?"

He tilts his head to look at her. "Yeah?"

"Don't you have raves in America?" Rhiannon asks, mystified by what to her seems like an awful lot of effort for a party. Here it’s beer purchased with fake ID’s and ropey old liqueurs lifted from the back shelves of parental liquor cabinets, everyone gathering at the house of whoever’s parents are gone for a weekend. Or an empty field, if everyone’s parents are refusing to play ball. But to go to another country? For strobe lights, cheap drugs, and ambient techno of varying quality? No, thank you.

"Well, yeah, of course we do." Sebastian sits back up with a grunt, leaning over to take another cigarette from the pack on the little table between the beds. "But if someone asks if you want to go party in Iceland, you kind of just go with it. It's not like I did it every weekend, just that one time with a bunch of male models."

Both twins can do nothing but stare at him, cigarette and cello bow limp in their respective hands. Rebecca recovers first. "I want to do that," she breathes.

Rhiannon leans over to grab a stuffed bear from her twin’s bed, hurling it across the room while Rebecca ducks. “You have a girlfriend,” she reminds her sister.

“I swing both ways, idiot,” Rebecca retorts. “Also, I’m _not blind_ . And for the record, Hayley would totally be up for a weekend of watching male models raving in Iceland, too. Because she is also _not blind._ ”

For his part, Sebastian has been quietly watching them snipe back and forth. “Teenage girls,” is all he says before lighting up another cigarette. “You are fascinating creatures. I want you to know that.”

Tossing her hair back, Rhiannon glares. “Back to you. Tattoos?”

He lifts an eyebrow. “Tattoos are judgeable criteria?”

“No. Raving with male models is, but for the tattoo, I’m just curious.” She fixes him with a stare, pleased to see him squirm after only a few seconds. Not so laid back after all. “Well. Go on.”

He stares back at her, a tiny frown between his eyebrows, clearly waiting for her to give up. _Not a chance,_ she thinks. Inhaling off of her cigarette, she flicks ash out the window without even looking, making sure to smirk at him a little while she does it.

It’s not even very long before he gives in. “Fine.” He sets aside his cigarette and starts pulling off his t-shirt.

Rhiannon chokes on her next lungful of smoke; it’s her turn to squirm. “What - put that -”

“No, Rhi, wait,” Rebecca’s eyes are fixed on Sebastian’s bare torso, a tiny smile on her lips. “Not yet.”

“You are a complete degenerate,” Rhiannon snaps. “Hello, this is our brother’s boyfriend?”

“Our brother has good taste,” Rebecca replies with a brighter, broader smile. “Let’s appreciate it.”

The best course of action is clearly to ignore her twin. Easily done. “Okay,” Rhiannon says to Sebastian, trying to look anywhere but at him without looking like that’s what she’s doing. “I’m going to assume your partial nudity is relevant.”

“Yes.” He beckons her over, pointing to his right shoulder. “Here.”

His back is lightly freckled, and the tattoo is so cleverly done to almost but not quite match the tones of the freckles, it takes her a minute to see it. Rhiannon gasps when she works it out. “Orion.”

With a nod, Sebastian starts pulling his t-shirt back on, much to her relief. “Yep.”

She returns to her bed, bouncing a little as she settles in. “Significance?”

“I moved around a lot, most of my life,” he replies, picking his cigarette back up. “After a while I started to look for anything, just one little thing, that all these places I lived in had in common, so that I could feel a little anchored.” He inhales. “Not that, as a kid, I realized that’s what I was looking for...anyway. One night when I was 12 and visiting my grandparents, my grandfather took me outside and told me to look up. ‘That’s Orion,’ he said. ‘You can see it from almost any place on the ground, most of the year. When you’re looking for something to hold onto, kid, look up.’”

Rebecca’s cello squeals slowly to a halt again. “That is the cutest story I ever heard.”

“You haven’t had that tattoo since you were 12, though,” Rhiannon points out, feeling slightly like a jerk for saying it, but on the other hand, there is totally more to the story.

Fortunately, Sebastian grins at her, politely ignoring her buzzkilling ways. “No. I got it after I opened my photography studio. Things were kind of crazy then, with the studio opening and Adam was looking into buying into the bakery at the same time. Our lives were changing big time all at once, I was going a little crazy - and after I called home once, I guess not hiding my stress as well as I thought, my grandfather sent me a postcard of Orion that just said, ‘Look up, kid.’”

“And that’s when you got the tattoo,” Rebecca sighs. “That is _so_ cool.”

Rhiannon has to admit it kind of is. “Does Adam have a tattoo as well?” she wonders aloud.

“I would never tell you about the cupcake he got tattooed on his butt,” Sebastian says, bursting into laughter as both twins gape at him. “Oh my god, he does not have a cupcake tattooed on his butt, you should see your faces. Face. I don’t know. Twins are weird.” He wrestles himself back under control. “No. Adam does not have a tattoo, but he has expressed interest in getting one, one day. And hopefully he’s going to be home soon, so I need to go shower off the smell of smoke before he gets here.” Stubbing his cigarette out, he flings it out the window and gives a cheerfully mocking little bow. “Ladies.”

Once he’s gone, Rebecca starts back into rehearsing the Haydn processional. “I officially like him,” she says, concentrating hard on her bowing and fingering. “He’s nice, he’s funny, he’s cute, he’s cool, he loves Adam. I like him a lot.”

“Same,” Rhiannon replies absently, picking at the stitching on her duvet. “He’s pretty cool. I hope to god we don’t scare him off. This week has been so weird.”

Rebecca looks up with a reassuring smile, never missing a beat with her music. “And it’s almost over. We’ll all be fine. I wouldn’t worry, Rhi.”

“You never worry about anything,” Rhiannon reminds her sister. “You are ever the optimist.”

Sticking her tongue out, Rebecca fingers out a loopy little trill and beams at Rhiannon. “One of us has to be.”

Downstairs, the back door of the house slams, diverting their attention. Footsteps crunch out into the grass. “Adam’s driven by twice now,” they hear Tim say. “You know he’s not coming in until you leave, right?”

The girls look at each other, wide-eyed. Well. Isn’t _that_ interesting? Rhiannon tries to shift a bit closer to the window to hear better.

“I’m well aware,” she hears Brendan’s irritable voice reply. “But damn it, this is my home, too. Was. And they’re my parents, and it’s my wedding week! I’ll stay as long as I want.”

Rhiannon holds in a snort. Like Chloe would allow it.

A world-weary, put-upon sigh from Tim. “Really?”

There’s shuffling, like Brendan might be kicking the grass. “No,” he admits. “It’s after ten, we’ll be going soon. But it shouldn’t be like this! You know that.”

_What does Tim know?_ Frowning, Rhiannon exchanges another glance with her sister, who lifts an eyebrow in silent reply. One of the most maddening things about this entire week is how no one’s willing to talk about exactly what went wrong between Adam and their other brothers. Ever since the proposal, the twins have hoped that this week - the inevitable return of Adam and his equally inevitable encounter with Brendan - would finally explain the mystery they grew up hearing everyone whisper about, but no. If anything, it’s gotten worse, and it’s ten times more dramatic than any breakup or fight they’ve ever seen at school. Which seems ridiculous, since what they do know is that it seems to all stem from Brendan being a jerk as a kid, Tim going along with it, and Adam refusing to get over it.

Rebecca quietly brings her bowing to a halt and starts to move to join Rhiannon at the window. “Are they -”

“Ssh!” Rhiannon waves her twin back to her cello. “Don’t stop, they’ll think we’re listening.”

“We _are_ listening,” Rebecca points out with irritating logic.

“They don’t need to know that. Keep going, I’ll tell you all I hear.” She shoves herself back up against the head of her bed and leans as close to the window as she dares.

“He’s being a child,” Brendan is saying, and Rhiannon hears the familiar hiss of a butane lighter being ignited and the crackle of a cigarette being lit. _They snuck out for a crafty fag?_ Interesting, she had no idea either of them smoked. “I mean, honestly, this is ridiculous.”

“But you know what, Bren? So are you, on both counts,” Tim shoots back. “You’re being childish and ridiculous, I mean. In case I wasn’t clear. You’re also conveniently forgetting Adam’s actually very legitimate reasons for being upset with you.”

Brendan scoffs. “You were clear, thank you, and also you’re being a cock. We both did what we did, by the way. It’s not fair he’s forgiven you already!”

“Well, I made an effort to apologize for my part in what was done, and to talk to him, and I didn’t get drunk off my arse and insult his boyfriend within hours of their arrival.” There’s a second hiss and crackle, and when Rhiannon peeks, she sees the tell tale cherry red glow and files this away for blackmail later. “I really think that, you know, that sort of effort does pay off.”

“Sounds like you’re taking his side,” Brendan says, and oh, god, it sounds like he’s _pouting._ Rhiannon rolls her eyes and would put money on the idea that Tim’s doing the exact same.

“I’m taking no one’s side, I think you’re both being entirely stupid.”

When Brendan speaks again, this time he sounds hurt. “You and I used to be really tight, Tim.”

“We still are. That’s why I can be this blunt with you and you know it.”

A snort. “Are you this blunt with Adam?”

“No. Not yet. Not since he’s the one who had to put up with us teasing him, and stealing his stuff, and pretending he didn’t exist, and basically lived most of his life with us being complete fucking arseholes, Bren.” Tim’s chuckle is sardonic and hard to hear. “It’s amazing that he grew up to be as nice as he did, given that we treated him like an intrusion instead of a brother.”

“We tried to make up for it with the twins,” Brendan offers feebly, like he knows it’s not going to cut it. “We didn’t treat them like shit.”

It doesn’t. “That’s not the same as making it up _to_ Adam.”

Rebecca gives up on her cello again, setting it aside in silence before creeping over to sit under the window with her bow in her hands. “I can’t take it anymore.”

“Fine.” Rhiannon really wants another cigarette, but if she could hear Tim and Brendan lighting up, there’s no way she’ll get away with it. She reaches up and starts tugging at her hair instead. “Just stay quiet.” She doesn’t want to miss another word.

“Well. I’ve apologized to Sebastian, at least, and he’s been pretty cool.” Brendan tosses down his cigarette and stomps it out, lighting another right away. “I’m gonna take him out for a walk tomorrow, you know, just a ramble maybe, we’ll get some final pictures in for Cee’s digital scrapbook thing.”

“Okay.” Tim’s voice is abruptly sharp, making the twins look at each other in confusion. “I’m going to stop you there. Whatever you’re planning, don’t.”

_Oh._ Rhiannon can just imagine the look on Brendan's face that triggered _that_ kind of surprising reaction. Tim is generally the most calm and neutral of the five of them. It takes something fairly significant to break him out.

So Brendan must have something incredibly stupid in mind.

“I’m not planning anything.” But the innocence in Brendan’s voice is patently false. It’s laced with an amusement that’s genuine, not at all malicious, but that doesn’t make Rhiannon feel any better. Looking down at Rebecca, it’s clear that her sister feels the same way.

And Tim is flat out angry in a hurry. “You are, I can tell just by looking at you, and I am telling you, don’t do it, Brendan.”

“Ah, god, Tim, it’s a harmless prank like we play on all of the boyfriends and girlfriends that come through this family. You did it to Cee, you gave her that ‘kale’ smoothie that was actually full of coriander when we knew all her life how much she hates it. And I played that one prank on that boy Rhiannon brought home last year, with the water guns and the vinegar -”

Yeah. Rhiannon actually hasn’t forgiven Brendan for that one. She scowls as she remembers Charlie’s fury, and how he hasn’t spoken to her since, and actually how she hasn’t had a single date since then because everyone’s afraid of her brother. Brendan’s problem is that he doesn’t understand the concept of limits, or going too far, or really, what a bad idea is, whether he means to be harmless or not.

Vinegar stings, if it gets into someone’s eyes.

Suddenly, she’s sort of understanding why Adam might have a hard time forgiving what she used to think sounded like the usual childhood shenanigans.

Tim has clearly always known this. “This one is different and you know it, Bren. When it comes to you, Adam sees nothing as harmless. When it comes to his boyfriend, I am doubly certain that he will not see your ridiculous prank as harmless. Adam is very protective of Sebastian.”

“Sebastian can take care of himself,” Brendan insists, clearly determined to carry on with whatever idiotic plan he’s cherishing.

“He certainly can, from what I’ve seen. That doesn’t negate Adam’s protectiveness, and given the history, Brendan, I’m telling you not to do this. Adam will not see anything you do as funny, especially if it goes wrong.” Tim is trying as hard as he can to get through Brendan’s thick skull, but every Crawford listening at this point knows it’s not going to work, and oh, this is going to be so bad. “Even if Sebastian doesn’t care, _Adam will_.”

Brendan sighs loudly. “Fine, Professor, take all the fun out of everything, god.”

Rhiannon notices that he does not say he’s not going to do whatever he’s planning, but good old Plausible Deniability Tim doesn’t call him on it. She and Rebecca exchange exasperated looks, Rebecca actually biting down on the spine of her bow so she doesn’t start shouting out the window.

“You know, maybe Friday night after the rehearsal dinner, instead of a stag do, you and me and Adam ought to go down and have some pints and a talk.” Tim takes a noisy pull on his cigarette. “It’s ridiculous this has gone on this long, and over the most idiotic, juvenile stuff. You and I were complete fucks to Adam and we know it.”

“I do know it, and for the record I have been trying to apologize, but in case you haven’t noticed, I point out again that he’s being a bit of a brat at the moment and won’t give me the time of day.” Irritability rides high in Brendan’s voice. “I mean, I’m with you on this, all right? And fine, I’ve sort of been dodging it myself, but he won’t even meet me a quarter of the way, let alone half. I have made efforts.”

“In your own fashion.” Grass rustles as Tim stomps his cigarette out. “Let’s agree on Friday then. All right? I’ll call the guys and tell them a family thing came up. That’s more or less the truth.”

“Adam won’t -”

“I’ll get Adam there, don’t you worry. I’m not the one he’s still got a full-on grudge towards.”

Brendan is silent, but his thinking is loud enough for the girls to hear two stories up. “All right,” he finally agrees. “Yes. Let’s get it all out in the open. Be done with it. I’d like to go into my wedding with both my brothers and a clean slate.”

“Good. Then it’s settled.”

“Yep.” Brendan lets out a big yawn. “Right, I’m for home, Pop Alden needs me to come check those bummer lambs of Chloe’s out in the morning...by which I believe he means he wants me to get one last ‘treat my daughter well or I’ll feed you to wild pigs’ lecture in.”

“Good night then, Bren.” As the back door squeaks open, Tim calls, “And seriously, if you want this to really work, don’t do the thing you’re planning, just don’t.”

The door slams shut behind their brothers, and that’s the end of that. As silently as possible, Rebecca reaches up and eases the window shut before settling onto her bed. “So much for not worrying. Sorry, I take it back. We do both know that Brendan is going to do whatever stupid thing he’s got in mind, right?”

“Of course, fucking idiot that he is.” Rhiannon chews on the side of her thumb. “He’s probably going to take Sebastian out somewhere and just ditch him. He would think that’s hilarious and harmless, ugh. Which if Sebastian was from here and seemed like the hiking type, it would be but...”

“He’s not, so harmless this is obviously not, and if Sebastian gets lost...oooh, I would not want to see Adam or be Brendan.” Rebecca’s bow taps against the wooden floor as she thinks. “Should we tell Sebastian not to go with Brendan?”

“He’s really bent on seeing the best in Brendan and not rocking the boat with us, haven’t you noticed?” Shaking her head, Rhiannon grabs a lock of her hair and starts to twist it. “Besides, he might tell Adam and then the shit will really hit the fan, and Chloe will kill us all. Plus Sebastian seems like the kind of guy who would do something you told him not to just because you did in fact tell him not to.”

Rebecca purses her lips, tilting her head to the side to consider it. “Oh, that is so true. So. Fine, what do we do? Since it’s obviously going to be up to us. They’ll need to be followed.” A frown crumples her brow. "But we have school tomorrow, and you know the trouble you'll get into if you skip, and they’ll never let you out of class for faking sick."

"Yeah." Winding the lock of hair around her finger, Rhiannon considers and discards a dozen ideas, desperation rising higher with each failure. "Fuck. For once I wish I didn’t have all those skips and absences." Sneaking out of class to smoke had never seemed so unimportant and petty, all of a sudden.

Rebecca pauses and taps her bow against her lip for a moment. "But I don't."

Rhiannon tugs hard at her hair. "What?"

"I don't," Rebecca repeats. "Have the skip record you do, I mean. I’ve got perfect attendance. They’d believe me if I said I was sick or had cramps or something."

All Rhiannon can do is stare at her twin like she’s grown two extra heads. "Yeah, but you're no good at tracking and following and all that, you always hated it."

"That's why I won't actually be doing it." Rebecca grins and sets her bow aside, getting up to join Rhiannon on her bed and link their arms together. "I’ve got this idea. Do you think you can fake being a model student for long enough to come down with the stomach flu and get sent home early?"

It's not often that Rebecca can take Rhiannon by surprise, she's so steady and calm. Rhiannon feels her face stretching into a grin. The switch. Rebecca has got to be suggesting the switch. “Maybe. Are you actually suggesting what I think you are? You, of all people?”

“Mmm. Might be.” Rebecca’s smile is bright and sunny and completely made of false innocence. “I can’t be the good twin _all_ the time.”

“You actually can’t really manage it even half of the time, but Hayley, Tristan and I are the only people who know that,” Rhiannon points out. She feels her grin fading away as the implications of Rebecca’s suggestion really start to sink in. “The switch. You actually want to?”

“It seems our best chance.” Rebecca’s calm reason is only slightly rattled by a nervous tremor in her voice.

Still. She has a very good point. Rhiannon shudders. “Ugh. The idea of wearing boring black socks and a uniform skirt that actually goes down to my knees is already making me want to heave."

"Yes, well, I may well break out in nervous hives if I have to spend the entire school day in your gynecologist's wet dream," Rebecca shoots back. “I think this is the only way we’re going to manage this, Rhi. What other choice have we got?”

_No good ones_ , Rhiannon acknowledges to herself with a deep sigh. “It won’t be easy.”

Rebecca tips up her shoulder in a shrug. “It never was, but it was always fun. And at least Tim won't be at school to catch us out on the switch. Or Dad, I think he starts his off time tomorrow."

“He does. Small favors.” It’s just about crazy enough to work, though they haven’t pulled the switch in years. But Rhiannon can’t see any other way to keep Sebastian safe without him being aware that there’s anything to be kept safe from. They have one chance to keep the peace for their family. “We’ll have to text everyone - your friends, mine. Nobody can slip up and call us by our proper names. And you absolutely totally can’t sneak off to make out with Hayley like you usually do, that’ll blow it all in a second.”

Rebecca pulls a face. “Damn it. I’d forgotten about that...well. One day won’t kill us. We can do this. For Adam and Sebastian’s sake. And you can’t go sneaking off to smoke!”

“No.I can’t. For the entire family and this godforsaken wedding’s sake,” Rhiannon corrects. She leans down and pulls her schoolbag up onto the bed. Might as well dive right in. They don’t have a lot of time left until lights out. “All right, since you’ll be me for the day, this is my homework for French in this pocket, and just drop this art project off with Miss Trowbridge on your way out of school. Did you have homework in English Lit?”

Her fingers are shaking as she trades bags with her sister, but she tries to will the trembling to stop. _We can do this_ , Rhiannon tells herself, refusing to allow room for any doubt. _We_ have _to do this_.

***

The morning doesn’t get off to a great start, as nerves make them more snappish with each other than usual.

“I don’t understand how you go around with all this hair just hanging around your face all day, doesn’t it get hot and in the way?” Rebecca shoves an Alice band into her hair with a sour expression.

“Oh, because going around with your hair in this ridiculously tight ponytail is better? How do you not suffer from a permanent migraine?” Rhiannon can practically feel her hairline receding already. “You will actually be bald by the time you’re thirty, you do know that.”

Rebecca picks up Rhiannon’s schoolbag, sticking out her tongue as she swings back upright. “It worked for Karen Gillan and Sinead O’Connor.” Coming up behind her sister in the mirror, Rebecca strokes the long fall of hair with a conciliatory expression on her face. “I can plait it for you, if you prefer. I’ve worn French plaits before, no one would think it’s odd.”

“Too late, no time.” Sighing, Rhiannon fingers the pearl studs in her earlobes, for once glad that their mother had forbidden additional piercings until they were safely off to uni. They’d never have been able to hide extra holes with Rebecca wearing her hair the way she did. “God, you and your post-war chic.”

“Right, because being the living embodiment of a Smiths fan’s never gone out of fashion.” Grinning to take the sting out of it, Rebecca shoves her own schoolbag at her twin. “Come on. Showtime.”

They’d decided to skip breakfast, despite the fact that Adam was making pancakes. Too many people around the breakfast table meant too many chances to screw up and get discovered. Fortunately, their mother was once again holed up in her office, and she was the only one who cared if they ate a full breakfast or not. That left them able to chew on granola bars and exchange last minute notes until Tim, whose turn it was to do the morning school run, honked the van horn for them to get a move on.

"You're sure we didn't forget anything?" Rebecca frets, clomping awkwardly down the stairs in Rhiannon's boots.

Rhiannon has her fingers wrapped tight around the banister as she navigates wearing the chunky heeled school shoes her sister prefers. It feels all wrong, unsteady, not solid. "Pretty sure I've covered everything from my end. You know, I think I've just worked out why we haven't bothered to do this in forever."

"I don't know how you actually get away with hemming your skirts this short." Reaching down, Rebecca tries for the fiftieth time to make the tartan skirt reach her knees, and tuts unhappily when she fails. "Really, how?"

"They aren't any higher than I can reach with my fingertips, and that's all the school rules say I have to manage," Rhiannon replies. "I could ask you how you wear these shoes without falling over or having your toes fall off from how tight they are..."

Neither of them are entirely thrilled with the situation or Brendan for causing it by the time they finally get out the front door. "I hope that sheer insistence that we are who we say we are works," Rebecca moans. "I cannot even imagine we're going to be able to pull this off all day."

"We have to." It sounds grim, and it should. Too much is riding on this for them to fuck up, and it's too late to turn back now. Rhiannon breathes in deep and swats at her sister's hand as they approach the van. "Stop pulling at your hem. It's a dead giveaway."

Tim is buried in the newspaper when they get in, and barely looks up at them as they climb into the back. "Your Royal Highnesses. Kind of you to join the plebes for another day at school."

"We're not late, Mr. Sarcastic," Rebecca snaps, a mere second before Rhiannon almost does the same thing out of reflex. _Too close_ , she thinks, going cold all over in near-panic. _This is going to be so hard._

At least she only has to do it half the day or so.

“I take it we’re picking up Hayley as usual?” Tim folds away the paper and looks expectantly at them in the rearview mirror. “Becca?”

Rebecca’s kick to her foot makes Rhiannon realizing that Tim’s looking specifically at her. _It’s working!_ is her first thought, followed by, _as long as I don’t fuck up, shit_. “Yes, please, thank you, Tim.”

“No problem. Just. You know. Keep it short, as usual.” There’s a pained look on his face as he switches the vehicle on and starts pulling out of the driveway. Rhiannon frowns. _What’s that supposed to mean?_

Whatever. She puts it out of her mind and bends her head over Rebecca’s English Lit homework like her sister does every morning, not that there’s ever anything to correct or revise. But this is what Rebecca does every day, needed or not, so Rhiannon sinks herself deep into it while they drive to Hayley’s home.

She’s so absorbed in keeping up the Rebecca charade that she doesn’t notice her twin basically turning purple until there’s another kick to her foot. Annoyed, Rhiannon looks up, only to feel cold panic wash down her spine at the look of terror on Rebecca’s face. “What?” she hisses, keeping an eye on Tim.

Rebecca glances at their brother too and shakes her head, biting her lip. Whatever it is, she doesn’t dare say it in front of Tim, not even in a whisper. He’s already glaring back into the mirror, frowning at them. Rhiannon turns her head hurriedly back down to the perfectly done homework, wondering with fear what Rebecca’s panicking about.

“We’re here,” Tim says, frown audible in his voice as he parks in front of Hayley’s place. “I’m serious, make it quick, Becca. Mrs. Shaw isn’t going to appreciate a long show, either.”

Rhiannon’s first instinct is to ask her brother what the hell he means, but she catches a look at Rebecca’s face and it stops her in her tracks. Rebecca is making ridiculous fish faces at her when Tim’s not looking. “Give her a good one for me,” she calls out as Rhiannon slides down out of the van, and it’s a good imitation of Rhiannon’s voice saying _nothing_ she has ever said before, and Rhiannon wonders what exactly has gotten into her entire family this week.

Hitting the ground with care in Rebecca’s uncomfortably snug shoes, Rhiannon makes her slow way towards the front door of the Shaw home. It’s work, real work to keep her head up and mimic Rebecca’s cheerful brisk stride, to not fall into her own slouching lope. She has no idea how her twin is going to manage a full day of bad posture, either, but she guesses that’s Rebecca’s problem. They both know the stakes.

She remembers at the last minute to press the doorbell button and arrange herself in an imitation of Bex, more upright citizen and less pile of sulking clothing while she waits for Hayley to come greet her. _Seriously, this is going to be the worst day…_

It doesn’t get any better when Hayley yanks open the door and bounds out to the front step, blonde curls bouncing as she reaches forward, wrapping her fingers around Rhiannon’s wrist and pulling her in close for a kiss. With a yelp, Rhiannon pulls back at the very last second, only Hayley’s grip keeping her from stumbling into the begonias. “What the shit, Hayley? What are you doing?”

Blinking, Hayley leans back in. “Hello, kissing you?”

Rhiannon pulls back again. “Hello, you remember I’m not actually Bex, right?”

“Yes, I do remember.” Hayley has the grace to look guilty as she flicks her gaze over Rhiannon’s shoulder towards the van, worry in her green eyes. “Tim’s going to expect it, Rhi,” she whispers with urgency, biting at her lip. “I’m sorry, Bex was supposed to remind you.”

She’d tried, Rhiannon realizes. With the ridiculous fish lips and the admonition to _give her a good one for me_. This is what Tim had meant. In all of the plans, she’d forgotten this part and so had her sister. “Fuck,” she whispers back. “Fuck! I forgot I was going to have to kiss you!”

“You’ve kissed people before, right?” Hayley hisses, eyes narrowing. “This won’t be a totally new experience? At least _some_ of the rumors must be true?”

Rhiannon can’t help the eyeroll of exasperation. “I’m a virgin, not a complete novice,” she snaps. “But I’ve never kissed a girl, I’m not the bi one. Not even a little bit.”

“Shit.” Hayley’s gaze flicks back over to the van. “Okay. I’ll make it quick, and I’ll make it nice, and not too long. Best I can do, all right? I’m not really into this either. I mean, you’re pretty and all, but I do love your sister.”

They’ve taken too long already, Rhiannon knows. She squeezes her eyes shut. “Hurry up, then.”

Hayley pulls her in again, sliding her fingers up to cup Rhiannon’s face as their lips meet. It’s kind of nice, Rhiannon realizes. She likes it better than doing schoolwork, less than smoking a cigarette. And Hayley’s more gentle than that one random guy Rhiannon made out with at a party ages and ages ago. Still. Not her first choice for a morning activity.

Pulling back, Hayley looks at Rhiannon with expectation. For what she knows won’t be the last time today, Rhiannon rolls her eyes again. “Not bad. We done now?”

“So romantic. But you can buy me flowers later.” Hayley winks and giggles and grabs Rhiannon by the wrist again, pulling her over to the van where Tim is leaning on the steering wheel with his face in his hands.

Rhiannon is already beyond done, and it’s barely quarter past eight in the morning.

***

She’s even more done by lunch. “Here’s your chemistry assignment, and you got high marks on your Lit paper,” Rhiannon informs her twin, dropping her schoolbag on the table with a loud thump. “I hate your German class, by the way. I literally had a coughing fit trying to read _Der_ _Erlkönig,_ Herr Bauer had to excuse me to get water. Stop flirting with Hayley.”

“I wasn’t flirting,” Rebecca grumbles, pulling away from where she was whispering into her girlfriend’s ear so that she can move to sit next to Rhiannon instead. “I was making plans for tonight. And like your French class was any easier for me? I suffered a sudden case of tonsillitis, I only barely got out of being sent to the nurse.”

Rhiannon sighs. It’s getting cut too close. “We’ve got to end this,” she decides. “One of us is going to get caught if both of us are here acting weird.”

“I agree.” Although Rebecca’s agreement comes with a glum sigh of her own. “It’s way harder than I thought it would be. This _skirt_.”

“Oh, enough about my skirt, god, it’s not like you’re flashing the world your fanny, Rebecca.” She sounds way too much like herself there for a minute. Inhaling deep, Rhiannon tries to rein it in. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.” Rebecca pats at Rhiannon’s hair. “You’ll be able to take your hair down soon and the headache and crankiness will go away.”

“Unlikely on the cranky part.” She has never wanted a cigarette so badly. “So, all right, then? Time for me to go?”

“I think so - no. Wait.” There’s a look dawning on Rebecca’s face that Rhiannon doesn’t altogether like. Something like mild horror, strong uncertainty, and a really unsettling confusion. “Wait. Actually, Rhi - should you go now? I mean, do we even know when Brendan is going to go get Sebastian? Is he going now?”

What a stupid question. “Of course he is. Of course we know,” Rhiannon snaps, unzipping her bag to pull out the notebook where they’d hastily listed everyone who needed to know who was who, each other’s schedules for the day, which friends would be taking active hands in helping them pull this off, and of course, Brendan’s agenda.

Or at least, the words _Brendan’s Agenda_ are written across the top of a page that is otherwise rather expansively white. Rhiannon’s heart sinks. There’s only one item written down besides the header. "He said he was going to Alden Farm early, to check the lambs and talk to Mr. Alden. That’s it. That’s all we’ve got. Shit. Shit shit shit. Oh my god, we are so incredibly stupid.”

This entire plan is going about as smoothly as Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.

“Okay,” Rebecca says, eyes huge and knuckles white as she twists her fingers together. “Okay. So, we’re not going to panic. Right? We’re not panicking.”

“When Brendan could have already dropped Sebastian off in some random isolated back alley somewhere, no, of course we’re not panicking.” It was a near thing, though. How could they have been so dumb? They’d done so much planning, stayed up so late into the night, she was wearing these awful shoes and Rebecca just looked plain strange with red lipstick on, and somehow they’d forgotten the most important detail of all. “Who’s panicking?”

_We are_ , Rebecca’s eyes said, quite without ambiguity. And she is, of course, completely correct. But she's also the first one to regain her composure in a crisis, and that helpful skill takes over now, to Rhiannon’s immense relief. “Okay. Right. Give me that notebook. We can sort this. No problem.” She reaches over and slides the notebook to sit between them, digging a pen out of her bag. “So, right, Alden Farm to check the lambs and get a lecture from Mr. Alden. That should have been a couple hours. And then he's probably going to put in at least a half day at the clinic." Rebecca scribbles this down, chewing the lipstick off of her bottom lip as she calculates. "So that's what, noon, and then maybe he'll go have lunch with Chloe.”

“No, he won't,” Rhiannon reminds her sister. “Chloe's with Adam today, right, they’re baking the wedding cake, they’re at the Alden’s too."

“Oh, right.” Rebecca jots this down as well. “So then…”

"Wait," Hayley begins to say, but the twins ignore her, intent on their work.

"So he'll do his lunch at the sandwich place like he does whenever he's on his own." Rhiannon frowns and taps her pencil on the paper. "Or maybe he'll take Sebastian out for lunch? That could happen, he’ll want to come off all friendly and harmless."

Hayley lets out a gusty sigh. "Hello, I'm -"

"Maybe. Probably not. Oh, or, well. Maybe he will. Or he'll go to the house and have it with Mum? Then he's there to pick Sebastian up." Rebecca taps the pen on the notebook. “I mean, Brendan is practical, after a-”

Kicks to their shins make both twins screech and turn to Hayley in unison. "What the hell, Hayley?"

Hayley shakes her head, blonde curls bouncing. "Why don't you just text your sister in law? Hello?" As the twins stare at her in mutual incomprehension, she closes her eyes. "It's their wedding week. Chloe is totally going to be keeping tabs on Brendan's every general move around town. Just ask her where he is."

The twins look at each other, and Rhiannon is just about 100% positive her sister feels exactly as stupid as she herself does in this moment. “Oh.”

Rebecca reaches down to rub the sore spot on her leg, a thoughtful expression crossing her face. "That'd work. It's not like we're supposed to know Brendan's going to be out with Sebastian anyway."

"We could say we were wondering if he could pick us up from school, maybe. Say Hayley’s mum isn’t sure she can do it so we’re just making a backup plan." Rhiannon looks down at her own leg, where a bruise is forming. "Good idea, Hayley. But ow, damn it."

"You weren't listening," Hayley replies, opening her eyes wide in mock innocence. Her gaze slides over to Rebecca. "Kiss and make it better?"

"Maybe," Rebecca coos, propping her chin in her hand. “How many kisses?”

"Save it for when you're not supposed to be me, will you?" Rhiannon hisses, jabbing her twin with her elbow. "God. Give me your phone."

Rebecca frowns even as she's pulling her phone from Rhiannon's schoolbag. "Why mine?"

"Because as usual, no one will suspect a thing when it's coming from you, as mistaken as their belief in your purity and innocence may be." She hurriedly types out a message to Chloe. “Answer fast, please, answer fast…”

Finally, something goes right for the two of them. “‘Sorry, Bex, Brendan’s closing up the clinic soon and then he’s going to be tied up taking photos with Sebastian til dinner,’” Rhiannon reads aloud when Chloe’s text comes back nearly instantly. “‘Let me know if you want Adam and me to come pick you all up.’”

“So...you basically do have to get moving _now_ ,” Rebecca says, alarm in her eyes. “You ready?”

“If you’re still sure you don’t mind me ruining this skirt.” Rhiannon hands her sister back her phone and starts digging in her bag again, fumbling around for the little bottle she’d tucked in amongst the rest of her belongings just this morning. “Last chance to back out.”

Rebecca shuts her eyes tight. “No. Do it. It’s just a spare, I’ll get another.”

This was one of Rhiannon’s least favorite parts of today’s plan, but needs must. “All right. Here goes.” Locating the bottle at last, Rhiannon opens it up with a twitch of her thumb, surreptitiously tipping a puddle of viscous, deep red liquid out onto the empty bench spot on her right. In one smooth motion, the bottle is capped, back in the bag, and Rhiannon has moved over to sit right in the puddle of sticky red goo.

Fake blood, of course. The finest available.

Taking a deep breath, Rhiannon assumes a horrified expression, covers her mouth, and begins to cry, her sister and Hayley moving quickly to console her. The teacher covering lunch duty this week is, fortunately for their purposes, male. Male, and young, and new this year, and as he comes over to see “Rebecca” tugging at her red-spotted skirt and sniffling, he all but passes out.

In five minutes, Rhiannon is in the nurse’s office.

Not that they’re out of the woods yet. “Your parents are out of town?” the nurse asks, frowning in concern. “You know I can’t send you home alone, Rebecca. That’s policy.”

“I know. I’d never ask you to violate policy,” Rhiannon replies, packing her words as full of sincerity as she can while she sniffles into a tissue. “I’m so sorry, Miss Harville. I can’t believe I lost track of my period. It’s just been so busy at home, with the wedding - my brother’s wedding, you know, that’s why my parents are gone. They’re in Sheffield getting some big special thing for it.”

No, they weren't. Moira and Stephen were tucked away in their home offices. But it would never do to have them come for her - they'd spot the switch right away - so Sheffield it was, far enough away to be an all day trip, large enough to believe that one might possibly find an interesting wedding gift there. Maybe.

Maybe not. The nurse looks startled at the very idea. “Sheffield!"

"Sheffield," Rhiannon confirms with a nod and a hopefully innocent widening of her eyes. Damn, but it really was hard to be Rebecca.

Happily, that seems to do the trick. Miss Harville's face relaxes. "Why, they’ll be gone all day then, Rebecca.”

“I know,” Rhiannon says again, and manages to burst into tears once more for good measure. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t have a spare skirt, not here, and my tights are ruined too, and everything, and it’s so _awful_.”

It is actually awful. The fake blood has soaked through her skirt to her tights, it’s cold and sticky and disgusting, and she wants nothing more than to change into something much, much cleaner and drier. Which she cannot do unless she can escape the school.

“I can call your brother to come fetch you,” Miss Harville muses aloud. “Mr. Crawford being staff here, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Rhiannon lowers her head. “I’m so sorry. His phone is out of order.”

And it had been extremely difficult to sneak it away from him this morning, too. Rebecca had had to risk seeing Tim naked in the shower when she’d reached her hand into the second floor bathroom and swiped the handset, hiding it deep in the back of the twins’ closet in a bin of clothes they hadn’t gotten around to taking to the charity shop yet.

Miss Harville starts to frown, suspicion starting to creep into her expression. “Rebecca, I’m not sure what you want me to do here. I cannot send you home alone. You cannot continue in classes with your clothing in the state that it is. There must be someone I can call. What about -”

But whatever she’s about to suggest never makes it out into the world as the office door slams open with a bang. Mickey Ward stumbles through clutching one of the trashcans usually found in the classrooms. He’s chalk white and has a hand clamped tightly over his mouth. Rhiannon recoils away from the sight and grossly pungent smell of him. “I don’t know what happened,” Mickey mumbles through his fingers. “It must have been something I ate -”

And in an instant, Miss Harville has forgotten all about “Rebecca” and the suspicions beginning to crawl through her mind. She snaps back into nurse mode. “That’s all right, Michael, just lie down here.” In a deft move, she has the trashcan in one hand and is steering Mickey over to one of the lounging benches with the other. Every time she peeks at trashcan, the look of horror that crosses her face is priceless before she gets it back under control. “My goodness. Please, lie down, Michael. I’ll go call your mother and...dispose of this.”

The door slams behind the nurse and her malodorous burden, leaving Rhiannon alone with a classmate who not only reeks of vomit, there’s teeny little spatters all down his front where it escaped his hand. She feels a little like throwing up herself. It takes a lot of will to sit in silence and hold down the urge.

When the nurse has been gone for a couple of minutes, Mickey sits up, pulling a packet of sanitary wipes out of his blazer pocket with a grin. “There you go, Rhi. Went off without a hitch.”

Perfect.

Under normal circumstances, she’d hug Mickey, but today, no way. Still, she’s not ungrateful. “God, thank you _so_ much.” This had been a crucial part of the plan, and relief goes through Rhiannon. “I owe you so, so big. So big, Mick.”

Obviously she’d known that the school was never going to send her home alone - all students, even those as reliable as Rebecca, had to be escorted home if they were ill or indisposed. But just as obviously having Moira or Stephen or Tim come pick “Rebecca” up was never going to work, so that meant calling in a big, big favor.

Mickey Ward was an indifferent student and only a fair-to-middling artist, but he had one very specific and genuine talent: crafting realistic looking bodily fluids.

It was Mickey who had been been Rhiannon’s source for the fake blood she used in the lunchroom. He was also disturbingly good with fake vomit, and had rigged up an ingenious mechanism for the conveyance of it. When he wanted out of class, a squeeze of the plastic bag under his arm sent a spurt of disgusting fluid up a tube running through his sleeve, and mayhem commenced.

He was Rhiannon’s insurance policy, and he was certainly paying off. She hopes. If the nurse does what she needs her to do...

Mickey wipes his hands and face clean. “No problem. It was fun. And one of my better formulas, if I do say so myself,” he informs Rhiannon, quite pleased with himself. “I used cornstarch to -”

“Not necessary,” Rhiannon interjects. “Seriously, ugh. Thank you, but ugh.”

“Suit yourself.” He tucks the used wipes into a plastic bag he retrieves from his pocket. “But it was really good. Hey, Rhi. I don’t mind doing this for you - like I’d ever mind getting out a half day of school - but what’s going on? You and Bex haven’t pulled the switch since, god, primary school, I think. Something up?”

“Yeah, but I can’t tell you until after the wedding.” She hears the nurse coming back and waves him back to lying down, curling back up on her own lounge and affecting her best period cramps face. “I swear I’ll explain it all Monday - and don’t call me Rhi!”

Miss Harville bustles through the door with a cool wet cloth that she lays on Mickey’s forehead. “Your mother will be here soon, Michael. And I asked if she’d take Rebecca home as well - I think you live near each other. Is that all right?”

Perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect. This is exactly what Rhiannon had hoped would happen.

“Yes,” Rhiannon and Mickey chorus in croaked out whispers, holding back yelps of triumph.

***

Mrs. Ward wants to drive “Rebecca” directly to the Crawford front door, but fortunately Mickey’s got enough left in his vomit reservoir to make his mother run right off the road in panic, and Rhiannon takes the opportunity to slip away in the shrieking chaos, cutting through gardens and back roads to get to her home. Not that she’s going actually _to_ her home. The neighbours across the street have box hedges she can hide behind and do a clothing change while she waits for Brendan and Sebastian to leave. She'd stashed a knapsack with a change of clothes in there last night.

She peers through a break in the hedge while she digs a pair of jeans out of the bag. Good. Brendan’s van is there. Now to hope _he’s_ still there, that she hasn’t missed him.

It’s difficult to keep peering through foliage and change clothes without revealing too much at the same time, but some miracle touches Rhiannon and as she’s tying the laces on her trainers - thank god she was absolutely done with those fucking shoes of Rebecca’s! - the men she’s waiting for emerge from the house at last. One brother, one future brother in law and his camera bag, headed southeast on foot. Rhiannon pulls a hoodie on over her school blouse, keeping an eye on the guys and letting them get ahead a bit.

_Brendan will probably at least let Sebastian get a few shots in,_ she thinks, pulling down her tight ‘Rebecca’ ponytail and securing her hair into a much more comfortable sloppy bun. _I'll have to try to account for that._ Stuffing Rebecca's schoolbag into the knapsack, she hides the whole package back in the hedge, pulls up her hood, and starts off down the road after the men, careful to keep her steps quiet and to dodge behind hedges if she thinks they’re even _thinking_ of looking behind them. _Stay with me, luck._

It doesn’t take her long to realize where they’re headed. _The lake_.

There's one shallow lake in their town, surrounded by a small but thickly wooded area not far from the Crawford home. It’s not public property, not that this stops anyone from sneaking in. But it is definitely a bitch and a half to get into and not get caught. In fact, it’s going to involve a lot of hopping back and forth over fences to accomplish, and she’s quite glad she took the time to change into more suitable clothing. Though she is rather annoyed that she’s going to have need of it.

So much for luck. Still, if she didn’t have bad luck, she’d have had nearly no luck at all today, so she grits her teeth and gets on with it.

She keeps behind the two men until Brendan leads Sebastian off down the street that runs down the east side of the woods. Then it seems like a good time to break and let them get even further ahead. Rhiannon leans against a low wall at the end of the road and nibbles at her thumbnail while she mulls everything over.

This really is a bastard move on Brendan’s part. Obviously he hasn’t thought through how Sebastian’s going to get back out of the restricted area without getting caught by the police. Or he has thought of it and just thinks it’s part of how hilarious his whole prank is. Either way, what does it matter? Brendan’s apparent plan assumes that Sebastian could easily find his way back to the break in the fencing and hedges and trees that they’ll be getting in through. Which Rhiannon isn’t counting on. Not that she thinks Sebastian is stupid, not at all, but she’s gotten the idea from bits and pieces she’s overheard this week that he’s not exactly as appreciative of nature as the Crawfords tend to be.

The entire enterprise could easily dissolve into a massive disaster. A shiver goes up her spine to think of all the ways it could go wrong. This is so much worse than she and Rebecca had anticipated.

Worry makes her decide that fifteen minutes is plenty of lead time. If she jogs slowly, they should still be well into the wooded area by the time she gets to the broken-in entrance.

She's right. There's no sign of them by the time she jogs up, wheezing so loud a flock of pigeons takes off in alarm. _Maybe I should give up smoking. Jesus._

The good thing is that Brendan and Sebastian’s passage has broken a nice big hole into the wooded area for her to creep through, sparing her that effort at least. Rhiannon wonders how Brendan convinced Sebastian to follow him at a crouch into this place. If it weren’t a matter of basically national emergency, _she_ certainly wouldn’t be caught dead doing it. And not just because of the twigs getting caught in her hair.

Or the bugs. She is trying not to think about the possibilities of bugs.

As Rhiannon pushes out of the snug greenery tunnel, footsteps crunch in the distance. She hurls herself behind a thick yew tree, peering out to get the barest glimpse of the woods walker. If luck is with her, it will be Brendan. If not, it’ll be someone who’ll catch her and drag her to the police. Rhiannon holds her breath, not daring to wheeze even a little bit.

Luck - the good kind, relatively speaking - returns to her side. It’s Brendan, chuckling as he pushes through the hole in the greenery. Sooner than she’d expected, they can’t have done any photos. But exactly as she’d expected, Sebastian is not with him. _Cock._

Rhiannon waits until the noise of her brother’s departure fades away before pushing out from behind the yew tree. Now comes the hard part. Or another hard part, given all it had taken to get her here today. At any rate, she has to find Sebastian. And soon. Checking her phone lets her know it’s nearly home time, which will mean a lot of questions for Rebecca if Rhiannon can’t get back home soon and sneak into the house before Mrs. Shaw drops her sister off.

She sets off, picking her way through leaning saplings and thorn bushes, hoping that eventually following the general direction she’d seen Brendan coming from will help. _If I believed in God_ , she thinks, _I’d ask him to send me a sign._

In the next moment, Rhiannon’s head snaps up as the sound of an agonized howl of pain echoes through the tiny forest.

"Okay, I don't think much of your sense of humor, whoever you are," she tells the sky, "but that'll work."

And she breaks into a run, as fast as she can.

  
  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not thank [Mimsy](http://borogroves.tumblr.com) enough for her tireless Britpicking and beta work on this story. While there is a significant portion of my brain that does in fact operate as though it were English, the plain fact is that I am an American who for some ridiculous reason decided that, sure, I needed to write a story with lots and lots of English characters. Set in England. Being all English.
> 
> Mimsy makes sure I keep things as English as I can get them, and I am grateful for the time she donates to this ludicrous cause, especially for this chapter because this month I have completely lost my mind six ways from Sunday and you should have seen this mess before she got her hands on it. Whew.


	9. That's Great, It Starts With An Earthquake

Sebastian opens his eyes. _Alone. Again._ At this point it's not even a surprise.

There's a mug of tea on the nightstand, set on a little electric warmer. A pair of yellow sticky notes cling to the glazed pottery surface. Sebastian picks them up, reading as he drinks.

_Hello, love -_

_Sorry, as you know baking a wedding cake can never begin too early. I’m with Chloe taking advantage of her parents’ much larger kitchen and I expect to be there most of the day. I’ve got my mobile, but if you need to get me, I think you might be better off calling the house directly. I expect our phone bill is going to be quite frightening enough as it is. The Alden’s house number is on the list taped to the wall by the kitchen phone._

_Try to have a nice day, and I’ll see you for dinner._

_All my love, Adam_

Sebastian tosses the notes back down onto the nightstand and hauls himself to his feet, yawning into his mug. He’d been asleep by the time Adam had dragged himself up to the attic bedroom, and not entirely awake when he’d vaguely registered a kiss pressed to his temple before Adam had climbed over him to get out of bed two hours ago. By the time he gets home from his photo shoot with Brendan, Sebastian will not have seen his boyfriend in 24 hours or more.

Relaxing vacation, this was not. But who’d really expected it to be?

He flips through his gear bag with his free hand while he chugs down his daily caffeine injection. Freshly emptied memory cards, check. Trusty digital Canon and backup, check. Spare box of Pop Tarts in case they go long and he gets hungry, check. Lenses, flashes, light meter, spare battery packs for everything, check, check, and check.

His hand pauses over a little plastic bottle. Newly refilled anxiety medication, check.

Dr. Marin’s confidence in Sebastian sits off-kilter on his shoulders. He likes it, likes how it fuels his own confidence, makes him feel like he can get through this week. But he’s still getting used to it. He’s only been sitting with it for half a day, and he spent a lot of that time asleep. Today he has to keep adjusting, keep repeating affirmations, keep reminding himself that once upon a not so long ago time, yes, he was in fact a badass. A jerk, but a badass. He can get along without the jerk part now, and he has to keep the bad in badass, because nobody likes an ass.

Sebastian taps a finger against the plastic lid of the pill bottle. All the same, he’ll just leave that where it is.

He grabs a t-shirt and heads down to the kitchen to see what he can find for breakfast. Noisy clomping down on the second floor followed by the bang of the front door lets him know the twins and Tim are gone. Adam went with Chloe ages ago. He assumes Moira will be locked up in her office and Stephen will be pottering around in the garden humming Leonard Cohen songs like he’s been doing in the evenings, so it’s a bit of a surprise when he wanders into the kitchen to find Adam’s parents, er…

Well. They’re making out. That is what they are doing. “Oh, wow.”

“Sebastian! Oh, god, darling.” Moira is giggling into Stephen’s chest, peeking out at Sebastian and not even remotely blushing. “Sorry, love. Ah, we forgot that the house wasn’t entirely empty, so sorry.”

“Adam hasn’t brought a boyfriend home in a very long time.” Stephen _is_ blushing, face ruddy up to the roots of his gray-streaked hair. “We’ve got out of practice. Still, better you than that ex-girlfriend of Tim’s, I suppose, do you remember her, Moira?”

“No tits, no sense of humor, swanning around like she wasn’t some two-penny tart out of Abergavenny, how could I _ever_ forget?” Moira asks archly, sweeping around her husband to start pulling down skillets and plates. “Sebastian, love, have a seat there, will you? I’ve neglected you these last two days, but you’ll get a proper breakfast now.”

"You really don't have to," he begins, but his heart isn't in it. She's just going to ignore his protests as usual. Hopefully the photo shoot with Brendan will give him an opportunity to walk off some of the sausage and eggs, and faithful Newton is under the table for what bits Sebastian can sneak down. “I mean…”

“Sweetheart.” Moira tosses a package of bacon down on the countertop and crosses over to cup his face in her hands, a motherly smile on her lips. “I do realize you are perfectly capable of feeding yourself and that you are not starving to death. But I am a Scottish mother of five children. I do not know how else to feed people. Hm?” The pat she delivers to his cheek is more of a friendly smack before she spins around to grab a towel and slap it across her husband’s behind. “You sit yourself down as well, Stephen Crawford, I’ve not been feeding you properly either. The twins escaped me this morning, the two of you might as well give in.”

“Yes, dear.” Stephen’s tone is mild, but his eyes twinkle as he takes his seat next to Sebastian, leaning over with a conspiratorial grin. “My youngest son is very much his mother’s child,” he stage-whispers with a wink. “It was never a doubt in my mind that you’d be a well-fed individual.”

“Did I not just say I well know he’s not starving, Stephen?” The towel flicks out again to catch Adam’s father on the arm and he yelps before Moira bends down to give him a kiss of apology. “Sorry, love. That one stung, I know.”

It feels like intruding to watch them, but Sebastian can’t help peeking at them from behind the mug of tea Adam had made him. He knows they’ve been together for over thirty years, but they’re acting like teenagers in love, like they’re still in their honeymoon phase. As if time hasn’t even scratched the surface of their affection for each other, let alone made an attempt to dim it.

He thinks about this as Stephen grabs Moira by the waist and swings her down into his lap, laughing as she screeches and kicks her feet. What will he and Adam be like in thirty years? Graying at the temples, slower to get out of bed in the morning. Would Adam still make pancakes every Sunday morning? Would Sebastian still enjoy watching him do it?

And kids, what -

Sebastian chokes on his tea, almost spitting it out as he realizes where his thoughts were going. _Kids? Kids?!_

"Sebastian!" Moira's up and out of Stephen's lap in a flash, coming around to grab Sebastian's arms and raise them over his head. "Breathe easy, love. Relax. Slow breath in."

"I'm okay," he gurgles out, aware that his strangled speech belies his statement. Sebastian takes in the recommended slow breath and gently tugs his wrists out of Moira's grip. "Really. I...wrong pipe."

Moira pats his shoulder. "Well, we've all been there, love." WIth another pat between his shoulder blades, she kisses his cheek and steps back over to the pile of breakfast makings on the counter. “Now. Let’s try this breakfast thing again, shall we?” Her hands move quickly, cracking eggs, laying bacon in a cold pan, dropping slices of buttered bread onto a tray and sliding it under the grill in the oven. “What are your plans, Sebastian?”

His mind is still reeling from the very idea of raising children with Adam, of being with him in thirty years time. _Did she read my mind?_ “I don’t have plans, who said I had plans,” he blurts, keeping his eyes fixed on the tablecloth while his fingers tap at his tea mug in agitation. “Plans?”

He can feel their astonished eyes on him before he even looks up to meet them. “For the day, love,” Moira says slowly, a bowl of beaten eggs dangling limply in her hand. “I...thought you were going to go around with Brendan?”

“For pictures,” Stephen adds just as slowly and with care, cocking his head to regard Sebastian as if he’s encountering an exotic animal for the first time.

And if Sebastian had the mental faculties to do so, he might be able to name a dozen dumb animals he feels like right about now. A stunned chimp, maybe. A fish that had leaped out of its bowl. A very tired horse. “Oh, that.”

“Ah, so you acknowledge that’s something.” Moira winks to take the arch sting out of her words as she dumps the beaten egg into another pan and begins stirring at it. “That we poor old ailing adults aren’t going prematurely senile -”

“No! No. No, yes, I mean, I’ll be taking photos of Brendan today.” Maybe he should have just stayed upstairs until the afternoon. It would have caused less damage. “He’s coming by in the early afternoon.”

“Good. You can come help me at the food bank.” Casting a smile over her shoulder, Moira pulls the toast out from under the grill to flip it over and resumes stirring the eggs. “The girls are just dying to meet the gorgeous American that’s stolen my boy’s heart. They’ll not know what to make of you, handsome thing.”

The way Adam’s mother flirts with him is somehow adorable, but disturbing, and puts him off balance even more. “But...your book,” Sebastian replies, wishing he could string a few more words together to sound like something more than a toddler.

“My agent knows I volunteer twice a week and that it won’t be shifted for anything. It’s built into the deadline. No, I’m feeding you a nice breakfast and then we’ll both get cleaned up and head off.” She leaves the eggs for a moment to come give him a kiss, then her husband. “You as well, Stephen. We never have enough helping hands. And come here, will you? You’re better at cooking the bacon and we both know it...”

Stephen follows Moira back to the stove, leaving Sebastian to wonder what just happened and what he’s been dragged into. What _family_ he’s found himself in. He watches them chuckling and nudging at each other’s shoulders while they put breakfast together, not much like the coordinated dance that he and Adam have to perform when they’re making breakfast in their tiny kitchen, but not entirely _not_ like it, either.

They’re happy. Comfortable. Clearly in love. And that is a lot like himself and Adam.

And, of course, that leads him right back into pondering over that potential future that had just hit him over the head out of nowhere - which, now the the shock has worn off, he’s thinking could be something worth pondering.

***

Five hours later, however, all he’s thinking about is a shower.

“Ugh,” is all he can say while he watches Moira pull herself out of the family car with enviable ease. It’s a bit more gratifying to watch Stephen gingerly extract himself from the passenger seat, obviously feeling every inch as battered and strained as Sebastian.

Only a bit, though. It’s also remarkably humbling to feel just as pained and achey as a man well into his fifties. _I’m not even thirty_. Still, part of that was from being crammed into the back seat of a compact car twice in the last few hours. Tim had gone from dropping the twins off at school to getting his final kilt fitting in, so the van had not been back in time for the rest of them to take it to the food bank. Sebastian is not looking forward to unfolding himself out of the little car. Not again.

“I’m right there with you, my boy,” Stephen grits out between his teeth, holding the passenger seat forward with one hand so Sebastian can get out. He reaches forward with his free hand to offer assistance. “I think I’d better take Chloe up on her offer to come over and do those yoga videos she likes. Get a bit of strength in these old arms before summer break comes around and Moira’s got me in the food bank hauling boxes every week.”

“I think I need to join Adam at _his_ yoga classes. Clearly hauling my camera equipment around has done nothing for my upper body.” When he finally emerges from the back of the little car, Sebastian takes a moment to crack his back. “I am not built for compact cars, ouch.”

Stephen pats his back - gently. “None of us but Moira and the twins are. But you’ll be able to walk off the kinks when Brendan comes. Get a good hike in.”

“That, I might be in better shape for.” He trudges alongside Stephen, Moira having already bounced her way back into the house shouting promises of hot tea and nice sandwiches. “I walk all over Manhattan, and Adam and I go running with our dogs every day.”

“You might survive a ramble with Brendan yet, then.” His hand lands on Sebastian’s shoulder with a little more force this time, but he’s so cheerful that Sebastian keeps his squeak of pain behind his teeth as they enter the living room. “Will you join us for lunch?”

“Ah...in a bit, maybe? I think I’d like another hot shower first. Relax my shoulders.” They’d spent a lot of their time at the food bank dragging heavy boxes of canned goods around. Between that and the car rides, he feels like there are rubber bands stretched tight between his shoulder blades. “The walk won’t be any good if I’m too wimpy to carry my gear around.”

Stephen smiles. “Moira will just bring you a plate of sandwiches, you know.”

“As long as she doesn’t bring them right into the bathroom, I think I’ll be okay.” He grits his teeth as he starts up the stairs.

“I’d lock the door just to be sure, then,” Stephen calls after him with a chuckle.

Sebastian isn’t sure whether Stephen’s being serious or not, but he locks the bathroom door all the same.

He does not lock the attic bedroom door, so he gets quite a surprise when he emerges from the bathroom post-shower to find not only the aforementioned plate of sandwiches, but Brendan sitting in the desk chair munching on one of them. “Mum sent me up with lunch,” he volunteers, waving what’s left of the one he’s eating with a cheerful nonchalance. “Don’t worry, I left you plenty.”

“Jesus Christ.” His heart feels like it’s going to jump up his throat and out of his mouth. Sebastian grabs at the towel around his waist, making sure it’s secure. “I -”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Brendan assures him. “I play rugby and football, remember. Besides, didn’t you do hockey? You’ve seen a many a locker room, I’m sure.”

“Lacrosse.” Sebastian snatches a handful of clothing out of the wardrobe with shaking hands, not particularly caring if any portion of it besides the jeans belongs to him or to Adam. “I know you have lacrosse here, you know it’s not hockey.” He keeps his voice still, but it’s only out of the most iron control.

Brendan raises his hands up in surrender, a perplexed frown crinkling his brow. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just forgot.”

“Yeah. Okay.” He backs into the bathroom, trying to get his breathing back under control and his hands to stop trembling. Trembling hands make it difficult to button up jeans, short breath makes it difficult to talk or think straight. _Deep breath in. Slow breath out. He didn’t know. He couldn’t have._ He tries to remind himself that he _likes_ Brendan, that apart from that disastrous first night, despite Adam’s icy antipathy, they do get along well enough. And Brendan doesn’t know about Sebastian’s anxiety issue. Sebastian reminds himself of these things, and they almost work.

All the same, it takes him several minutes and dunking his face into a sinkful of cold water several times before Sebastian feels up to going back out into the bedroom.

Brendan is still sitting in the desk chair, now wide eyed and wary. “Hey, I -”

Sebastian cuts him off. “I don’t like surprises.” He swipes his damp hair out of his face, still trying to take in a full breath. “I don’t like surprises. I don’t like being startled. And I think you might be a decent human being, but you and my boyfriend don’t get along at all right now, so excuse the fuck out of me if I reacted badly to your unexpected presence.”

Raising his hands up, Brendan nods slowly, not otherwise moving. “Got it. I’m sorry.”

It occurs to Sebastian that for the second time that day, he is being treated like some kind of weird, nervous animal. Well, whatever. This probably _is_ how Brendan deals with panicky livestock, and Sebastian can’t say he doesn’t feel like the comparison might be apt at the moment. He takes his first deep breath in several minutes and starts toward the desk, forcing himself to move smoothly as he grabs a sandwich. “Right. You want tea? We only have sugar up here, no milk.”

“No - it’s fine. Mum sent up mineral water.” Still slow and cautious, Brendan reaches behind himself to produce a bottle of Evian, holding it out to Sebastian with a great deal of care. “Seriously, Sebastian. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.” Though he isn’t sure it is. Yet. The ham sandwich is dry in his mouth, so he accepts the bottle of water and twists it open, drinking down enough to swallow the bite he took. His hands have stopped shaking and he can breathe again; if he can just get his raging adrenaline to finally calm the fuck down, he’ll be in business.

 _Fake it till you make it_ , he tells himself firmly, and rolls his neck until it cracks. “Right. So. Where’d you want to go today? For your photos.” He’s pleased to note that his voice at least sounds a little less taut with strain. It’s a good sign.

Brendan doesn’t entirely lose the cautious look on his face, but he does respond. “The lake. Not far from here.”

“Does it have good light?” He can’t take another bite. Setting the sandwich down, Sebastian goes to flip open the top of his gear bag again. Sure, he’s inventoried it once today, but it’s always a nice calming exercise. “Will I need a flash, you think?”

“I don’t know…” A glance over his shoulder shows Sebastian that Brendan is giving the question serious thought, though he could never actually know what Sebastian’s light needs would be. Still, the look of _uh oh a panicked cow_ has faded further off of Brendan’s face while he considers, and that is all to the good. “It’s surrounded by a wooded area. Light does get through the canopy, and there’s ground cover that grows pretty well. I don’t know if that helps you at all.”

Sebastian’s fingers trace over the equipment in his bag. _Flash. Light meter. Lenses. Pop Tarts. Camera. Backup. Spare battery packs. Memory cards. Xanax. Flash. Light meter. Lenses…_ “I’ll take a flash just in case. Light might get through those treetops, but it may not be consistent.” It might make for some interesting light patterns, though. Maybe he can get some nice shots of the greenery and even any animal life, if they’re careful and quiet. Zipping the bag shut again, Sebastian hoists it over his shoulder. He is in desperate need of air. “Let’s go.”

“What, now?” The look of surprise on Brendan’s face goes a tiny way towards making Sebastian feel slightly forgiving. The fact that he chokes on his sandwich a little goes further. “Shouldn’t we finish the sandwiches?”

“Your mom made me breakfast this morning, and the ladies at the food bank kept us all well supplied with cookies. I’m good.” Glancing around, Sebastian locates his jacket and hat and grabs them up. “You can take the plate to her in the kitchen, and I’ll meet you out front?”

With his nerves hissing _out out out OUT_ , he doesn’t wait for Brendan’s response, yanking the bedroom door open and clunking his way down the stairs.

The cool afternoon breeze is a welcome chill, clearing the last of the anger from his head and calming his jangled nerves. _He didn’t mean anything by it_ , he tells himself, leaning against the door jamb while Newton paces at his feet, whining. Kneeling down to rub the spaniel’s ears calms them both. _He didn’t know, he was just being friendly. Weird, but friendly._

Newton sits up straight and licks him on the face, barking once as if to say _look at what I did! I licked you!_ Sebastian bursts out laughing at his ridiculous doggy grin, at his wagging tail. “I miss my dogs,” he informs the little spaniel, “but you’re making that a little easier. I’d take you home with me if I could.”

“You’d break the twins’ hearts. Not to mention my father’s.” Tim jogs out of the house, fitting an earbud into one of his ears. “Hey there.”

“Hey.” He pushes to his feet. “Jogging?”

“I’m not coaching my rugby side for the rest of the week. Got to get in my exercise somehow.” Bracing one hand on the door frame, Tim stretches his legs. “You’re about to go out with Bren?”

"Yeah. To a lake or something? You know it?"

Something - concern? disturbance? irritation? - flits across Tim's face. "I know it. We used to sneak in there all the time. People still do, for the fun of it." He hesitates. "Be careful in there. It's full of badger setts and giant roots and things, and if you fall into the lake you might catch hepatitis or something. Ah, and you’ll need to climb two fences to get into it."

Sebastian frowns, not sure he's totally on board with this trip all of a sudden. Nature really never had been his bag, and he's not sure he completely trusts Brendan's judgment at the moment. Also, fences? "Huh. You want to come with? Keep me out of trouble?"

Tim's mouth tightens. "I'd love to. Unfortunately, once I'm done running I've to go pick up a special order of four pairs of specially dyed bridesmaid's shoes, get the corsages and boutonnières from David, and drop off about fifty thousand final payment checks to various vendors for reception music, catering, and the venue." He looks more annoyed than ever. "Conveniently enough. Otherwise I would absolutely come along."

Well. That's that, then. "Busy afternoon."

"Isn't it just." Stretching his arms over his head, Tim doesn't lose the annoyance. "Sorry, Sebastian. Truly. I've got to be off. Seriously, be careful in there, all right? You've got your phone?"

He fishes it out of where it's wedged into his hip pocket. "Right here. Can't use it for long, our plan charges us an outrageous amount for these international calls."

"If anything goes wrong at all," Tim instructs him, looking grim, "call me. Immediately. If need be, I can pick up the damn shoes tomorrow and I’ll pay your phone bill."

"What could -"

"Nothing, I'm sure. But just in case." Picking up the other earbud, Tim stuffs it into his ear and starts jogging off. "Remember. Call _immediately_."

"Hey!" But Tim's gone with his annoyance and grim expression and uselessly vague warnings, and now Sebastian _really_ doesn't want to do this.

He's still trying to figure out how to get out of it politely when Brendan finally shows up. "Hey-o. Sorry, Mum got to talking. Wedding stuff, phoowargh."

“No problem…” Sebastian twists the strap of his bag between his fingers. “You know, if you need to stay and work some stuff out with her, we can do this tomorrow.” _Or never. I’m starting to feel like never is good._

“Nah, nah, no, I need to _not_ talk about the wedding or do wedding stuff for a while!” Brendan pauses, twitching his mouth as he thinks about what he just said. “Well, I mean, shit, I suppose we’re technically doing wedding stuff right now, aren’t we? Whatever.” Taking Sebastian by the arm, he takes the lead and starts marching off across the lawn. “What we’re doing doesn’t involve flowers or kilts or ring bearers or what our first dance is going to be to - I’ve been telling everyone it’s _Hi Ho Silver Lining_ just to be a dick, do you know that one?” When Sebastian shakes his head, Brendan shrugs and keeps walking. “It’s an old one anyway. Right! How are you at fence climbing? We’ve to get over a couple to get into the lake.”

So there’s no escaping this now, is what Sebastian is getting. _Spectacular._

It’s not a long walk to the lake, exactly as Brendan had promised. However, just as he had also promised and Tim had mentioned, there are indeed two fences they have to scale to get anywhere near the little forest that surrounds it. And for an awful lot of the ten minute brisk stroll he’s dragged along on, Sebastian feels the distinct back-of-the-neck-tingling sensation of being watched. Or followed. It does not exactly make him feel better about any of this.

“I’m kind of dubious about the legality of this,” he begins as he reaches up to hoist himself over the second fence.

“I’m not,” Brendan replies breezily. “It’s totally illegal. We’re trespassing. No need to be dubious, Sebastian. We’re in the wrong.”

Comforting.

He hits the ground and follows Brendan over to a break in the wild growing hedges that surround the wooded area - another sort of fence, he guesses. “It’s usually kids who come through here, so it’s not very big,” Brendan says, pushing at some of the greenery and breaking off sticks and twigs. “This’ll be slow going, but we can get it big enough to let us through. If we crouch. Hey, can you come help out with this?”

Now more than ever all of Sebastian’s instincts are screaming at him to run, warring with his deep seated need to not rock the boat with Adam’s family. _I could hop that fence now. He wouldn’t chase me, he’d just think I’m weird._

Yeah, no, not going to happen. Suppressing his sigh of exasperation at himself, Sebastian walks over to help his boyfriend’s estranged brother trespass onto private property.

_I hope that Janey chick that arrested Adam isn’t anywhere around…_

Two of them working together open the break in the hedge wide enough to let Brendan in to break a further path, Sebastian following along behind almost bent double. The hedge is thick, but Brendan pushes through, breaking out an alarmingly large pocketknife to saw through a few of the more troublesome branches. He looks back over his shoulder at Sebastian. “You never know when you’ll need a giant knife, being a country vet,” he volunteers with a wink and a grin so cheerful it’s almost _Psycho_ levels of menacing.

“I bet,” Sebastian manages to cough out.

But all his nervy edge and paranoia falls away when he emerges at last from the hedge break and straightens up, taking in his surroundings. “Holy shit.”

“It’s pretty great, eh?” Brendan asks, hands on his hips and a tremendously pleased smile on his face.

Sebastian can’t see the lake, yet, but that’s only because the distance between it and them is filled with huge trees, oak and yew and types he can’t begin to identify. Many of them are so large and old, it would take three people joining hands to circle them. Fading ivy vines crawl up most of the trunks towards branches that have lost enough of their leaves to allow the sun to stream through in huge chunks through the faint cloud cover.

It is straight out of _Lord of the Rings._

“This is straight out of _Lord of the Rings_ ,” Sebastian breathes, and Brendan chuckles.

“Something like, yeah,” he says.

Sebastian’s fingers are already flying to unzip his gear bag. “Do you mind if I take a few shots of this first?” he asks, locating his Canon and the appropriate lens by touch. His eyes dart from tree to tree while he fits the lens on. “To get a feel for the light and surroundings?”

Brendan waves his hand, grinning. “Sure, go ahead. Hey, do _you_ mind if I step away for a second? Visit the facilities, like? I’ll be quick.”

“Take your time.” Sebastian already has his camera powered on and is lifting it to his face, too distracted by the gorgeousness around him to be grossed out by the idea of peeing in the woods. “I just want a few shots.”

“No problem.” Brendan’s footsteps crunch away behind him, but Sebastian is completely engrossed in snapping everything he sees.

There’s no wildlife that he can see - birds, he does hear birds, and the occasional rustle of what might be a squirrel. But he doesn’t see any of them. And that’s fine, because he is absolutely captivated by the luminescent fingers of sunshine that beam down through the branches, filtered by the clouds and dappling the leaf-covered forest floor with the most fascinating patterns.

It takes him a few minutes to pull himself back to the world and realize that if Brendan is still peeing, it rivals Austin Powers in terms of longevity. Austin Powers _and_ that one guy Tom Hanks played in that women’s baseball movie. Together.

It is an epic pee.

If that were what was happening.

It is dead silent in the woods, the eerie silence that horror movies have promised him is a harbinger of doom. There is nothing so much as a bird chirp lighting up the air, let alone the sound of a large Scotsman relieving his bladder. And in this kind of silence, he would surely hear  _that_. Whether he wanted to or not.

He does not want this silence to mean what he thinks it means. _Don’t have been an asshole after all, Brendan. Come on._

Pushing down a rising nervousness, Sebastian tucks away his camera, taking the lens off and carefully nestling it into its pocket, then powering down the Canon and stowing it in its space as well. The careful tending of his equipment is habit, but right now it is also something that keeps his hands occupied, his mind from going too batshit crazy. Slowly, he rezips his bag shut, sliding the zippers all the way to the back of the bag, and when he can’t put it off anymore, he wipes his hands down his jeans and takes stock of the situation.

He’d wandered further into the wooded area as he snapped photos. He thinks. Maybe he’d just moved kind of westward? Sebastian turns in a cautious circle, trying to distinguish one tree from another and failing utterly. For the first time in his life, he does sort of regret not joining the Boy Scouts or Campfire Kids or whatever social group might have given him more in the way of survival skills than glee club and lacrosse had. Though at least lacrosse imparted to him wicked aim with a long stick. If he’s here too long, that could come in handy.

Oh, he really does not want that to have to come in handy.

He’s got to get out of here. Somehow. _Start at the beginning._ “Brendan?” he calls out, hating how his voice wants to choke itself off in his throat. Shaking his head, he takes as deep a breath as he can - it’s getting difficult already - and tries again. “Brendan?”

Silence, but for a startled bird of some kind rattling out of a clutch of branches overhead. Then nothing again.

If he’d had any hope that Adam’s brother hadn’t up and ditched him here, well, it had just taken off with that bird.

 _Goddamn it_.

Tim’s words flash to the front of his memory. _If anything goes wrong at all, call me immediately_ . Okay. Sebastian would definitely qualify being stuck in an unfamiliar wooded area that is growing increasingly creepy as _something going wrong_. Yes. Good. THat’ll be worth the exorbitant charge from the phone company. Digging down into his pocket, he finds his phone. He has a solution. He has a step two. He has a -

He has a complete lack of signal. “Are you kidding me?” he asks his phone, shaking it like that will make the bold _No Service_ magically transform into five full signal bars. “Motherfucker. _Fuck._ ”

Only the rapid stuffing of the phone back into his pocket prevents him from hurling it across the forest floor. Only the rapid stuffing of his fist against his mouth prevents him from yelling his useless rage into the sky.

Right about now, Sebastian Smythe is 98% certain he is capable of murder. And that is new. Closing his eyes, he tries to clear his mind and think. He doesn’t have much in the way of options.

It is a bad idea to go walking off into the woods, he knows. He will get lost in the unfamiliar trees that all look alike. But maybe he can scratch crosses or something into the tree bark - he remembers seeing that in a movie or something once, and he has his own pocketknife. Then he’ll know if he’s passing a group of trees twice, maybe. It’s a start.

The wooded area is fenced in. It’s finite. If he’s slow and careful, eventually he’ll come up against the fence or the lake. And he can walk around the lake. And keep going. Until he finds a fence. He doesn't have to get out the way he got in, he just has to get out. This is not the complete disaster the anxiety-prone part of his brain thinks it is.

This is not the best idea, but it is his only idea.

Sebastian turns around, starts to take a long confident step, and hooks his left ankle right under the humped root of a massive oak tree. Pain roars through his entire lower leg like a wildfire as he falls to the side with a primal howl of agony he has no way of suppressing.

For a moment, the world lights up with a thousand golden fireworks, and then goes black.

***

When he comes to, Sebastian is at first simply gratified that a bear had not mysteriously materialized in this enclosed forest and eaten him.

Then the reality of his situation hits and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe he can’t breathe he cannot breathe he is injured and trapped and lost and he is going to die and he can’t _breathe_ and his chest aches with how tightly it feels contracted and his ankle hurts and he is going to _die_ and he will never see Adam again and -

 _Adam_. Sebastian seizes on the thought of his boyfriend, of the man he loves. He grabs on to that thought, on Adam’s sunshine smile and perpetual bedhead. He latches on to memories of being in bed, of skin on skin and quiet laughter. He holds on to a butterfly kiss on his temple just this morning like it’s a lifeline, and right now, it is.

It is nearly as agonizing as the pain in his ankle, but Sebastian corrals his rising panic attack with the coping skills he’d learned from Dr. Marin, gritting his teeth as he forces himself to concentrate on the best thing in his life, the one thing guaranteed to pull him back from the brink. _Count good moments backwards from ten,_ he hears Dr. Marin say, and he starts.

 _Ten._ Waking up to Adam making pancakes and singing along to some jazz station on the radio their first morning together.

 _Nine._ Adam taking a nap with Fitz and Roger, little dog curled up and snoring on his chest, big white rug of a dog stretched out all across Sebastian’s side of the bed like he owns it.

 _Eight._ Adam pulling open the door the day Sebastian had decided he couldn’t live without him, looking exhausted and hurt and sad and still the most wonderful sight Sebastian had ever laid eyes on.

 _Seven._ Adam slipping toaster pastries under the bathroom door the night of the opening of Orion’s Belt Studio, making sure Sebastian didn't starve while he worked up the nerve to face the crowd at the party.

 _Six_. Adam kissing Sebastian every morning, waking him up out of a grumpy sleep stupor with tickly kisses to the back of his neck and a wandering hand…

 _Five_. Adam underneath him, under his hands and lips and love, laughs interspersed with gasps and sighs.

 _Four_. Adam at the bakery, in his element, covered in flour and frosting and a smile that encompasses the world.

 _Three_. Adam with Sebastian’s goddaughter Kira, making her giggle and laugh while she tosses back her head full of soft dark curls and claps her little starfish shaped hands to his cheeks.

 _Two._ Adam in the future, gray streaked through the blond, but the smile never fading, the love in his blue eyes as bright as ever.

 _One_. Adam.

Sebastian’s chest loosens at last and he pulls in deep, slow breaths. _In. Out. In. Out._ Air fills his lungs, but he knows this isn’t the end of his panic attack. It’s better, way better, but it’s not over. He keeps breathing, holding the panic at bay, and he takes stock of his situation.

The pain in his ankle is a throbbing protest, and he can feel his skin stretch and go hot as it swells. A really bad sprain, he’s pretty sure. Thanks to lacrosse, he's got a second survival skill he never realized or wanted to use: he is intimately familiar with the shrieking pain of a broken bone. The good news is that this does not hurt _nearly_ as much as the actual broken ankle he’d suffered in State semifinals his senior year. Though it is not exactly a picnic, and he already knows he's absolutely not going to be able to walk on it. Which means he can’t get out of here.

That is not comforting. That brings the panic back to the surface. Grasping at his bag, Sebastian zips it open and fumbles out the little brown bottle, tipping a little peach pill into his hand and swallowing it down dry. _Fuck, fuck, fuck!_

The reality of his situation is all too clear and not in the least relaxing: he is stranded in an area he doesn't know. His phone doesn’t get service in this godforsaken place. He is injured. And in about fifteen minutes, he's going to be mellow as hell, but he has to get through that fifteen minutes first.

The noisy crunch of leaves being stepped on sounds behind him, and he cranes his head around to see who - what? - it is. “Brendan? You asshole. Is that you? That had better be you.” If it is, Sebastian isn’t sure if he’ll wait for them to get out of here before he murders Brendan. No, he doesn’t particularly care about the wisdom of that course of action.

Not that it matters. There’s no answer. His mouth goes dry.

Night is approaching - a few hours off yet, but still, approaching _at some point_. And there is a very noisy rustling back and to his right. It could be anything. It could be a police officer. It could be some angry farmer with a very large gun. It could be...Sebastian swallows. It could be what it sounds like as it gets closer, which, quite improbably, would be a panicked animal stumbling through the woods at high speed. Now his throat closes right up.

This is where he is going to die.

Sebastian pushes himself around to face the galloping stampede. His hand tightens around the rough, lumpy diameter of a fallen tree branch.

The stumbling creature bursts into his line of sight from behind a large tree, revealing itself to be - a teenage girl, panicked as she skids to a stop. Long strands of dark hair have escaped confinement at the back of her head, drifting down around her face as she bends over and tries to catch her breath. Sebastian blinks at her, trying to understand what - who - he's seeing. "...Rebecca?"

"No, it's Rhiannon, you jerk." She pulls her head up to glare, and he can see the truth of it in that angry blue gaze and the rasp of her voice, though there's something...off. Something that had made his mistake in identifying her understandable, though he can't put his finger on it. Her eyes get wide as she brings her fingers to her cheeks. “Oh, shit, I’ve still got her face on, I forgot that bit.”

Sebastian feels his own face twist in confusion. “Don’t you always have her face on? I mean, you’re the first set of identical twins I’ve ever met but there’s something about the word _identical_ that -”

“Shut up. You’re an idiot, just shut up.” Rhiannon slips her way down into the shallow little valley he'd landed in, picking through the leaves until she arrives at his side and drops to the ground. “We switched places today. I’ve got her makeup on, she’s got mine, it was a complete clusterfuck from start to finish and damn it, everything got screwed up anyway.” Still panting a bit, she pulls a pack of cigarettes and her lighter from the front pocket of her hoodie. “Fuck. Fuckity fuck. I had to run all _over_ this place to find you, I was starting to think you'd fallen into the lake and drowned, and I have _no_ idea how we would have explained that to Adam."

All Sebastian can do is stare at her. “I don’t understand anything that’s happening,” he says, aware even as the words emerge that he sounds lame and pathetic.

Rhiannon passes him a cigarette and the lighter. “Welcome to my day,” she says. She waits for him to light up, taking back the lighter for her own use. "Smoking in a wooded area is probably a really bad idea, actually."

"And today has been so full of _good_ ideas up until now." He clears away a pile of leaves, digging out a little hole in the dirt to use as an ashtray. "We'll just have to be extra careful."

"Like you were there with watching where you were going?" Rhiannon uses her cigarette to point at the giant loop of tree root that had tripped him up. "I assume that's what happened, anyway. Is it?"

Sebastian looks at the tree root, then back at Rhiannon. It occurs to him that there is something distinctly convenient about her showing up now, not long after Brendan had abandoned him. Isn't there? He ignores her question and goes on the offense. "Were you in on this?"

As he'd expected, the _non sequitur_ throws her off. "What?"

"Were you in on this?" he repeats, working hard to keep his voice calm. "This joke of Brendan's. Not that I find it funny, but I assume he did mean it as a joke."

She tilts her head, eying him warily as she ashes her cigarette. "He did, but he's an arse...are you hurt? If you're hurt, I should go find someone to help us."

"Don't change the subject, and don't go anywhere." It comes out sharper than he'd intended, and Sebastian has to look down and breathe in calm for a second before he can continue more rationally. "I mean. Please. I would rather you not leave me alone just yet. And I want to know what's going on."

Rhiannon says nothing, biting her lip as she looks away. Her unhappy squirming convinces him she wasn't in on Brendan's plan - but he's not convinced she didn't know ahead of time. He rolls onto his side to grab her foot and shake it. "Hey. What is this, why are you here right after your brother ditches me?"

Tossing her head back, Rhiannon inhales deeply. "You're not going to like it."

"Yes, because I'm having _such_ a good time right now." He raises an eyebrow. "We're not going anywhere for a while. You might as well fill me in."

She looks at him like she'd rather be anywhere else doing anything else, but tough shit. So would he. He keeps his stare leveled on her until she rolls her eyes and sighs. "Fine. Yes. Rebecca and I overheard him last night,telling Tim he was going to do this."

"Tim -!"

"Tim told him not to do it," she rushes on, holding up a hand to stop him. "But Bex and I were pretty sure he was going to anyway, so as a precautionary measure we switched places so I could get out of school as her - they'd never let me go, I've faked sick too many times - and follow you in case he did do it, but I didn't expect you to get hurt, Sebastian, not really." Her eyes widen and she scoots back a little - Sebastian realizes belatedly that he's still got a hand on her foot, and he's started to squeeze.

He doesn't even want to know what his own face must look like right now. He can already feel the blood that has rushed to it burning in his cheeks.

Rhiannon pulls her foot out of his grip and scoots further away. "And Brendan _is_ an idiot, Sebastian, but I'm sure he never intended for you to get hurt, just a little lost -"

" _Just a little lost_ ," and it comes out in a breathless snarl as his fingers convulse down around handfuls of crumbled leaves and loose earth. "After I told him - after - and _Tim."_

He remembers the look on Tim's face - the trepidation, the conflict. _He knew this was going to happen. Just like the girls did. They all knew._

And no one had told him, or really warned him, or tried to stop it. Anger knots his stomach and colors his vision. For Rhiannon's sake, he tries to hold it back, tries to calm himself down, but -

"So _everyone_ knew this was going to happen but me?" It comes out in a frustrated almost roar, and Sebastian rolls fully on his stomach to literally pound the dirt with his hand, his anger making him want to tear something apart. "You all knew and you let it happen. Goddamn it, goddamn it, goddamn it."

Hands cover his, pale hands that are so much smaller and more delicate than his, resting over his knuckles and squeezing. "I'm sorry," Rhiannon whispers, her voice unsteady. "I'm so sorry, Sebastian. I fucked it up." Her fingers are trembling against his skin, and when Sebastian looks up, he sees the terrified wide eyes of a seventeen year old girl, and panicked rage turns to guilt. It drains away like water to leave him limp in the grass and leaves.

"No," he mumbles, dropping his head back down until his chin is nearly to his chest. "I'm sorry, Rhiannon. This is just...I don't..."

"It's all right." Her hands squeeze tighter, and that stops her fingers from shaking. A deep breath seems to steady her voice. "I'd be mad, too. I don't think we handled this well. Sorry again."

He pushes himself back over onto his back. "You could have told me."

Above his head, Rhiannon tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and shakes her head, biting her lip. "We were afraid you'd tell Adam. Rebecca and I were, anyway, I don't know what Tim was thinking. But we didn't want things to be worse between Adam and Brendan...we just figured if I watched out for you, then I could just get you when he ditched you and it would all be okay. It was supposed to work. We made huge plans...all these plans, and I totally failed anyway." There's none of her usual bravado and bluster and snark about her now, and to Sebastian's horror, her eyes start to swim with tears. "Now Adam's going to go absolutely spare and everything's ruined."

"Hey. Hey now." His ankle yelps in protest as he shoves up to sitting and drags himself over to where Rhiannon is perched. "Come on. No. I shouldn't have gone with Brendan when I started feeling weird about it."

She sniffles. "You started feeling weird about this?"

"Well, no, not this, just in general after he surprised me in the bedroom." He sighs. "I don't like surprises. They rattle me. And I really don't like being surprised when I'm not wearing a lot, and I'd just gotten out of the shower..."

"Rebecca will be disappointed that Brendan's seen more of you naked than she has." Tears still sparkle a bit in Rhiannon's eyes, but a touch of mirth is there too, now.

"That's just bizarre." Sebastian pauses to shake the mental image of Rebecca's leer off. "Anyway. I was already wound up. I should have called off this excursion then."

"Could haves and should haves. Not really worth a fart." It's Rhiannon's turn to sigh as she pulls her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. "Adam's still going to be so mad."

That much was irrefutable. Sebastian could only hope to try and defuse his boyfriend as quickly as he could. _Maybe I can overlook the staring posters long enough to distract him._ "We'll figure something out."

The Xanax is starting to kick in, and he knows another temper fit is now unlikely to happen. Good. He'd scared Rhiannon and himself enough for one lifetime.

She lights another cigarette. "We should call someone to get you out of here. But not Adam."

His brain is going soft, his body relaxing, his ability to really care wandering off. "We can't call. Or can you? My phone's not getting signal." Which is not bothering him as much as it had before. Hooray for modern medicine.

Passing the cigarette to him, she digs her phone out from her pocket. "No. No signal. I'm going to have to walk until I get one." She levels a sober gaze on him. "I'm going to have to leave you. At least for a minute."

He doesn't care now. Flapping a loose hand at her, he shrugs. "It's fine."

Confusion flits across her face. "Really?"

Sebastian fumbles through his bag for the little bottle and holds it up with a wave. "I'm a little stoned at the moment. This just started to work. Finally."

Getting to her feet, Rhiannon steps over to get a closer look at the bottle, her eyes going huge as she realizes what it is. "Oh."

"I wasn't going to tell you guys..." A yawn overtakes him, and his hand drops to the ground, the bottle rolling out of it. "Thought I had it handled...was a just in case thing...didn't see this coming." A nap feels like it would be nice. So nice.

Rhiannon picks the bottle up and tucks it back into his bag. "I'll be back."

"Mkay."

She crunches off, leaving him on his back staring at the patterns of light and shadow. He doesn't like taking the Xanax. It comes too close to knocking him out, even at a low dose, because he avoids taking it very often. He'd taken it more in the early days of therapy as picking over memories brought up panic attacks nearly every day, but since then he's only rarely felt so squeezed and desperate as to need it.

And now, in hindsight, he's going to be completely useless in his own rescue efforts. Normally this would annoy him, but now all he can do is muster up a vague chuckle at his own stupidity.

Well. At least he's not freaking out at Rhiannon anymore.

She crunches back into sight, making sure he sees her before she sits down next to him. "Help is on the way."

"Awesome." He wishes he had a pillow. A pillow would be great right now.

Rhiannon drops down to sit behind him, lifting his head so that she can rest it in the vicinity of her lap. “Don’t think I’m trying anything funny,” she warns. “I’m not my sister. I’m just being nice.”

“Oh, no, this _is_ nice.” He manages to resist the urge to roll over and fall asleep. His boyfriend’s sister is most certainly _not_ a pillow. “I was just thinking I w…” He yawns. “Wanted a pillow.”

“Yeah, I gather it’s not one of those things a photographer usually packs in their bag.” Rhiannon hesitates for a moment. “Is Xanax?”

Sebastian lets out a little chuckle and wobbles his head back and forth in a lame approximation of shaking it. “Only the ones with a diagnosis of anxiety disorder and a history of panic attacks.”

Over his head, there’s a swift little intake of air, and when he focuses on Rhiannon, she’s nodding, her face sad and thoughtful as she bites her lip again. “Fucking Brendan,” she says. “He shouldn’t have -”

“He didn’t know.” Only the throbbing fire in his ankle is keeping him semi-alert. He still has to struggle to make sure he’s speaking in coherent sentences, if not terribly quickly. “I mean, no, he shouldn’t have. But he didn’t know. I didn’t...didn’t want you all to know. Adam treats me like I’m made out of glass as it is.”

“I get it. I won’t tell.” She leans back on her hands, slowly, so as to not jostle his head. “I’m sorry again, Sebastian. Really.”

He reaches up to grab her hand. “Thanks for coming after me.”

Rhiannon opens her mouth, eyes still dark with guilt, but the sound of leaves being crushed cuts her off, sends her jerking around to see what’s there. Sebastian’s head is jolted off of her lap, hitting the ground with a thump. “Ow.”

“Sorry.” But she scrambles to her feet without checking to see if he’s all right, her head darting side to side as she scans the trees in front of her. “Hey! Who’s there?”

"It’s me, Rhiannon." David's soft voice precedes his emergence from behind a tree, leaves crackling under his feet and a backpack slung over his shoulder. His eyes land on the two of them and widen a bit in surprise. "No - sorry, Becca, I didn't mean to get you mixed up. I just thought that since it was Rhiannon who had called me -"

"No, I am Rhiannon," she huffs with no little impatience. "Long story. Thank god you’re finally here. Look, come see, Sebastian's hurt. We need your help."

"I didn't know that's who you called." Sebastian tries to keep his voice calm and neutral, but the sight and sound of David makes his face burn red and his stomach do backflips. _Now is not the time!_

Rhiannon just looks at Sebastian with a frown. "He is a registered nurse," she points out, digging the pack of cigarettes out of her pocket again. "I thought it would be smart to have someone assess the damage before we move you. He's here to help."

"I brought a first aid kit. Let's get that shoe off." As David removes the sneaker as carefully as he can, Sebastian feels a blush crawling up his neck and face, surely turning his skin as red as the really nice cranberry colored sweater David's wearing. "Ooh, that does not look good."

 _You do._ Now Sebastian wishes Rhiannon _had_ been some kind of deadly animal. That killed him. Dead. Very dead. He swallows hard. "Um. Yeah. Doesn't, uh, doesn't feel really good either."

David smiles up at Sebastian, and it is ridiculous how cute he is, damn it. "Oh, I would imagine not. This is a nasty sprain."

Rhiannon, perched on a mossy tree stump with yet another cigarette, glances between the two of them for a minute before finally speaking up. "So, should I leave you two alone? I can get Adam here if you want to have a threesome or something."

"Rhiannon!" It bursts out of both men simultaneously, equal parts shock and embarrassment in both their voices, and they exchange blush laden glances.

"Seriously, I watched Adam making eyes at David over breakfast yesterday when he thought no one was looking, but you, Sebastian?" She puffs on her cigarette and rolls her eyes. The act of inhaling and exhaling has never been so contemptuous, but she does follow it up with a delighted chuckle. "I did _not_ see that coming. This is the best thing ever." Her mirth disappears into an abrupt frown. "Don't you dare break my brother's heart," she says, pointing her cigarette at the two of them.

David draws himself as upright as he can in a squatting position, dignity in his every line. "I wouldn't dream of it. And you are a positively wretched child, by the way." He picks through his bag to pull out an Ace bandage. "How people feel is none of your business."

"Then don't wear what you feel on your big stupid faces," Rhiannon counters, unruffled in the extreme.

Sebastian lies still, blinking at Rhiannon's statement. "Adam's been making eyes at David? I feel a lot less guilty now."

And there's another reason he largely detests the Xanax, he remembers as Rhiannon falls into a gale of giggles and David fumbles and drops the Ace bandage. Xanax kills filters.

"Enough," David mumbles, fishing out a fresh new bandage and putting the one he'd dropped back into his bag. "People are free to find each other attractive, Rhiannon."

Hm. Interesting. Sebastian tilts his head and says nothing.

David continues, hands gentle as he securely wraps Sebastian's ankle. "Besides. This is neither the time nor the place."

"You're right about that much at least." Hopping down off of the stump, Rhiannon checks her phone. "It's past home time. Rebecca's facing the music with Mum right about now. We really need to get to the house." She tucks her phone away again. "You've got your truck outside the fences, right? We'll have to figure out how to get Sebastian over them, though. Hadn't gotten that far."

David pauses with the bandage fastenings in one hand, his other warm on Sebastian's ankle to hold the end of the bandage down. "Truck?"

Uh oh.

A stillness falls as Rhiannon stares, slackjawed. "You didn't come here in the delivery truck?"

"Of course I didn't. You know I don't drive if I can help it! And you never specified on the phone. You said, and I quote, _Get here as quickly as you can, Sebastian’s hurt._ " David shakes his head and fastens the bandage securely. "You didn’t say he couldn’t walk. I cycled out here. My bike is waiting outside the fences."

Flapping her hands frantically in the general direction of where they'd all come in, Rhiannon looks like she's hanging on to sanity with her fingers and toenails. More of her dark hair falls out of her bun as she gesticulates. "Go fucking get the truck! Oh my god! We can't get out of here on a bloody bicycle!"

"We can't get all three of us out of here anyway," David points out, a little heated. "As you noted, how can we get Sebastian over the fence with that ankle? Besides, I don't have the delivery truck. My delivery fellow is out with it. Delivering." He pauses. "You know. Massive flower arches and the like for your brother's wedding?"

Sebastian watches them and wonders when exactly it was that his life became a slapstick sideshow.

Rhiannon freezes with her hands tangled into her hair, completely dismantling the bun in its entirety. With her hair falling all around and her face reflecting mingled frustration and despair, she looks like nothing so much as Ophelia about to pitch herself into the lake. "Oh, fuck. I'm going to have to go to plan B."

Well, that doesn't sound ominous at all. "What's plan B?" Sebastian asks, not sure he wants to know.

She looks like she's about to vomit. "I have to call Adam and Chloe."

Right. He was right. He didn't want to know. Too late. "You could call Tim -"

"I can call Tim. But he'll just call Adam anyway. We need the manpower to get you over the fences and none of us will want Brendan involved." Her hands drop along with her shoulders. "There's no choice."

David looks at the two of them. "And why is calling Adam bad?"

"Because he's going to kill Brendan," Rhiannon says, seemingly unable to stop slowly shaking her head. "Brendan's who got Sebastian out here in the first place. As a joke." She raises an eyebrow at David through the curtain of her hair. "I'm sure you remember Brendan's idea of a joke."

"I haven't been able to eat guacamole since I was fifteen," comes the baffling and sober statement that Sebastian assumes is supposed to be some kind of agreement. "Fantastic. A classic Brendan prank with all the attendant failure to think things through. Wonderful. And done to Adam's boyfriend. Yes. You're right. Calling Adam is a terrible idea."

"So we don't have to do it, right?" Sebastian asks, propping himself up on his elbows and trying to muster all the hope he can find. "We can leave him out of this?"

But he knows even as he says it that they really can't. And never really could. This is what the week has been building to, this or something like it. The boil between Adam and Brendan was going to have to be lanced at some point. At least this way they'll have some control over it. Maybe.

All the same, his stomach sinks to see the gloomy agreement on David's face as he shakes his head. It’s like they’re all agreeing that Armageddon is coming and there’s nothing they can do to stop it. "Rhiannon's right," David says, falling out of his crouch to sit heavily on the ground. "There's no way we can keep Adam out of this now. We need all the hands we can get to get you out."

Well. It had been a faint hope anyway, if even that. "I guess it was futile to think I could keep it from him," Sebastian sighs, marveling at how complicated things keep getting. "I can't really hide a sprained ankle, and I am a shitty, shitty liar. He would have found out about this regardless."

Rhiannon looks like the last place she wants to be is here, doing what it is she’s about to have to do. “I’ll go make the call, then?”

Sebastian shrugs, flopping himself back down to the ground. “Might as well.”

“Call Chloe,” David suggests. “Maybe she can break the news to him gently?”

“Maybe. Fine.” With an entirely sour face, Rhiannon marches back off into the woods, shouting, “And don’t get up to any funny business,” over her shoulder.

“Charming kid,” Sebastian remarks.

David looks at Sebastian with a sheepish sort of smile. “She’s always been sort of forthright. Even before she could talk. It’s funny, when it’s not directed at you.”

“No, it’s still funny.” God, will he ever be able to stop yawning?

“You and I have very different senses of humor, then.” David is blushing when Sebastian lifts his head to look at him, a charming, patchy flush of red all along the pale column of his neck and up his face. “Right, so, cat’s out of the bag, but about what Rhiannon said earlier - “

“I’m attractive, you’re attractive, Adam’s attractive, we’re all attractive.” Sebastian waves his hands in the air. “Mmm. Attractive.”

David chuckles. “Yes, well. I simply wanted you to know that I’d never act on it. That is to say, I’d never come between you and Adam. I find the both of you very, um, attractive, as you noted, and of course Adam and I have a history, but I would never have done anything. I wouldn’t have even tried.”

“I’d never do anything to hurt Adam. I’d never leave him. I love him.” His filter is still not back in place, he sees. “But you’re _very_ cute _._ ”

If David goes any more red, he’ll be able to top a Christmas tree. “Well, I mean, um...thank you?”

“ _No_ problem.” He clamps down on anything further, afraid of where his filterless tongue might take him.

Rhiannon crashes back into sight. “They’re coming. Cee said they were going to find and pick up Tim on the way.” She cocks her head and surveys Sebastian. “I think it would help if we could at least get you back through the little tunnel thing, Sebastian. We should be able to help you limp that far.”

David nods. “That’s a good plan, if Sebastian’s up to it. How are you feeling, Sebastian?"

Tilting his head up, Sebastian eyeballs the tree canopy. "Like Chicken Little."

"Pardon?" David's brow creases in a frown.

Sebastian sighs and pushes himself up to sitting. "Once we get back to the house, I have a feeling the sky's going to come down on all of us."

 

 


	10. Sparks In Flight

It’s exactly as difficult as Adam had expected it would be to bake a wedding cake with Chloe when she refuses to speak to him.

Oh, they're managing, mostly. If he asks for something, she finds it for him in her parents' enormous kitchen. She follows his directions with surgical precision, so they've already got one layer of orange vanilla cake cooling, another nearly done in the oven, and Adam's working on the third layer out of five now. In fact, it's fairly efficient having an assistant that doesn't talk. Things get done. And without the frosting fight they’d had on Tuesday that had made his mother shriek that 32 was not too old for grounding. Which is a bonus.

But Adam still maintains that the reasoning for the silent treatment is childish. And besides that, just because Chloe isn't speaking or hurling frosting doesn't mean she isn't conveying her displeasure in other ways that Adam is finding not only annoying, but in some cases painful. So after she slaps the glass bottle of orange extract into his hand with unnecessary force for the third time, he calls for détente.

Sort of. “If you would just apologize for your constant conspiring to put my brother and I in a room together without my permission or knowledge, I would  _h_ _appily_ forgive you,” he says, with what he thinks is a more than sufficient amount of magnanimity as he gently stirs the extract into a bowl of milk and egg whites. This statement is guaranteed to get under Chloe's skin. That's fine. His palm still stings from the bottle slap; she deserves a little needling.

The silence stretches on, broken only by the sound of the oven door opening and closing. A dinner plate clacks against the rim of a cake tin, thumps down onto a countertop, and the tin makes an almighty crashing clatter as it lands in the kitchen sink.

Adam sets the bowl of liquid ingredients aside, reaching for a larger bowl and the cake flour. _And three...two...one…_

“Me! Me apologize to you!” Chloe stomps across the kitchen to hit him over the head with a tea towel. Adam winces, but commences sifting the cake flour into the bowl, letting her rage away. “I am  _not_ the one behaving like a child!”

“I am peacefully baking your wedding cake, you’re assaulting me and screeching like a banshee,” he points out, his voice calculated to be calm to the precise degree that he knows will just infuriate her further. He sifts in the sugar, salt, and baking powder. “Could I get another stick and a half of cold butter, please?”

“Get it yourself, stick it up your arse,” she sputters, nonetheless crossing back to the refrigerator and yanking out the box of butter sticks.  “Just because you’re behaving at the moment doesn’t mean you haven’t been a complete shit for the last three days!”

He turns around just in time to catch the butter sticks she hurls at his chest. “Okay, I am absolutely not listening to you when you’re throwing dairy products at me. I’m sorry I even tried to start this conversation.” Setting the sticks down by the mixing bowl, he points at the two finished layers cooling on the counter. “And I can leave, thank you. Good luck serving a two layer wedding cake to all your guests. Without buttercream frosting. Does the Sainsbury’s Basics range have frosting options?”

Whipping the tea towel that’s acting as an apron out of his jeans, Adam turns as if to go. _Three...two...one…_

He makes it as far as the back door before Chloe explodes. “Ugh! Fine! You manipulative, blackmailing shite! I fucking apologize!”

“Say it like you mean it,” Adam can’t resist adding, dodging the return trip of his towel apron. “And stop throwing things at me!”

“Stop pretending like you’re a martyred saint in all of this!” Chloe shoots back, and Adam pauses in his volley as he sees that she’s on the verge of tears. “I just wanted everything to be perfect…”

Adam struggles for a moment with conflicting urges to strangle and hug her, finally crossing the kitchen to go with the latter when tears start actually rolling. He knows it's only partly genuine, but it's also only partly exaggerated, and besides - he's never been able to fend off the guilt that wells up at the sight of Chloe's tears, even if he _is_ completely justified in his feelings. "Cee. Cee, Cee, Cee."

"It sounds condescending when you do that," comes the weepy, muffled admonition from the vicinity of his chest.

"It's not meant to." He sighs. That is on the guilty side of a lie, but admitting it would just be inviting more things hurled at him, and all he wants is some kind of peace. "Look, Cee. We've got to get on the same page here. I know you want all fences mended and Bren and I skipping off into the sunset."

A sniffle. "It would be nice."

He takes a deep breath. "But I would like to remind you yet again of all the very shitty things he's done to me. The very shitty way he treated me when we were kids."

He feels a nod against his chest. "I remember."

"So you tell me." Every time he thinks about it all, it feels like he's cutting the wounds open again. It's hard to breathe through it, to not let it curdle into a sour lump in his stomach. "Chloe...that's a lot of hurt you want me to just forgive, and I don't know that I'm up to it in less than a week. Especially given the hash of things Brendan made my first night home. You've had years to get used to this new Brendan. He's never so much as emailed me."

"I know, and I don't..." Blonde curls tickle Adam's nose as Chloe shakes her head. "I don't expect forgiveness, Adam, honestly. I was just...I know I'm terrible, I do. But I hoped the two of you would at least talk. I love you both so much and I _know_ Brendan wants to at least try and make amends...you're just both so difficult."

"Not without reason, at least on my part," he says dryly. "No, I see where you're coming from, Cee. I do. And okay, yes, I've been working up the nerve to have a deep conversation with Brendan. But it's not easy." Pulling back, he tilts her head up by the simple expedient of his finger under her chin and smiles at her, waiting to get a watery return smile before going on. "You've got to let me work it out on my own, Chloe. Trying to force me into it just makes me want to run in the other direction."

She sighs. "It certainly does. Very effective in that."

Resisting the continued urge to strangle her, Adam sets his hand to tugging at her ponytail. "I can offer this: I promise I will smile and be civil on your wedding day, Chloe. Just for you. Not that I hadn't planned that anyway, but I will make a very extra special effort."

Her smile spreads. "It's all I can ask."

 _Then why have you been pushing for more all week?_ he doesn't ask, stuffing his pique down before he gives in to his more murderous instincts. "Then I'll do my best."

Biting her lip, Chloe nods. "Thank you, Adam. For what it's worth, I'm sorry I've been a beast."

"It's your wedding week," he reminds her, albeit with far more grace than he actually feels. "Believe me, as amazingly irritating as this has been, I have actually seen worse. Before you take off for Greece, remind me to tell you the full story of the Mendelssohn-Rehm wedding, they got Sweets and Orion's Belt as a package sort of deal and the only people who even remotely liked each other were the ring bearer and flower girl..."

"Not even the bride and groom?"

"Not by the time the final photo shoot rolled around." He yanks her makeshift towel apron out of her jeans and taps her on the nose with it, leaving a puff of flour behind. “Everyone in tears and the bride's Vera Wang with a new hem of yellow frosting, the groom speaking to no one and the maid of honor hauled off for public disturbance...at least you still  _want_ to marry my brother at nearly the eleventh hour, ill-advised as I personally think it is."

Deftly, she ducks out of his arms with a sly grin that doesn't exactly fill him with joy. “Right. Avoiding that topic in the interests of maintaining peace - ”

Uh-oh.

“ - let's talk about _your_ wedding plans?” she asks, taking back her towel and arching an eyebrow. "Hm?"

No. No, there’s not one thing about that question that he likes, not even a little.

"I don't know what you mean," he stalls, knowing exactly what she means. He's been waiting for her to find an opportunity to bring it up again and damn if he hasn't just handed it to her himself. Still. Four days, one almost had to admire her restraint.

But he doesn't want to think about it. The ring has been a pulsing beacon in its new hiding place since Sunday, fraying his nerves with its very presence as everything - well, his sanity at least - goes slowly pear-shaped.

"You do too know what I mean," Chloe retorts as expected, tucking her towel in and not taking her narrowed eyes off of him. “Assuming you find a good time to propose - that's not this week, thank you, at least not until Sunday at the earliest - and Sebastian accepts, you'll have your own wedding to plan. Any luck figuring out when The Big Question is going to get popped?"

 _Never, probably._ “Ah, well. I was thinking perhaps the 35th of Septembruary, at the High Noon of Oh, What A Terrible Idea.” This is a conversation he wants to have even less than any single one about or with Brendan, after the week he's had. Proposing to Sebastian had seemed like such a no-brainer when he'd first picked up the ring. Even when he was making sure it was still securely hidden in his bag, he'd had nothing but confidence in his decision.

Then they'd come here. And everything had gone mad. He winces. How can he even think of proposing after this?

Adam turns around and crosses back to his half-mixed batter, bending down to scoop up his towel and tuck it back into his jeans. He leans forward, resting his hands and most of his weight on the counter, and the sigh that comes out of him could send a paper boat across a pond. The guilt that propels it could sink the boat. “Chloe -”

“No, no, no,” she warns, crossing over to stand next to him. Pursing her lips, she sticks an admonishing finger up in front of his face and waves it around. “No second thoughts. You bought the ring, he’s lovely, no second thoughts.”

Adam snorts. “I’m not having second thoughts about _him_ , Cee.” Not even remotely. Almost two years they’d known each other now, Adam loved Sebastian so much it could steal his breath and he’d count the loss as negligible. No. “Never about him.”

Chloe manages to wait an entire sixty seconds before lifting her hands and asking, “So what then?”

He casts her a sidelong glance. “You spent Tuesday night washing buttercream out of your hair and you have to ask?”

“Well, it ended up being a great conditioning treatment…” When he doesn’t laugh at the joke, Chloe pokes him in the side. “No, seriously Adam, come on. What of it? So it's been a little crazy this week."

"Exactly, that's exactly it." He counts his breaths. "It's been crazy. Not a little, either, though thank you for that courteous understatement. Chloe, he did _not_ sign on for this sort of nonsense."

"Everyone signs on for that in relationships," she tells him firmly. "And if they can't deal with it, they can run. I don't see him running."

"It's not fair to him," he mumbles.

"It's not for you to decide that," Chloe counters.

Wasn't it? Or should have been. At the very _least_ Adam could have been a little more diligent with his warnings. A bit more thorough.

But no. Here he’d gone and thrust the man he was seriously wanting to marry into this dysfunctional crapshoot with virtually no preparation. Adam could excuse it with  _well he never really asked_ and  _it’s not his problem to deal with_ all he liked, but the real truth of this whole thing was that Adam came back here for Chloe, not Brendan, and he’d fostered a desperate hope that he could get through this without needing to address the Brendan thing at all. Which is the worst thing.

Because it’s not that the week has been crazy; it’s that _Adam_ has been. He is not without the self-awareness that actually, as entirely legitimate as his feelings towards his brother are...in coping with them, he has perhaps behaved with some slight unreasonableness. In some ways. And that, unpleasantly, is what has given him pause on his own matrimonial front.

Pause? Better to say full stop.

“Stop being a horse’s arse.” Chloe whips him across the backside with her towel, startling him out of his mope. “If he couldn’t deal with the insanity of the Crawfords, he’d have fled back across the Atlantic already, I’m sure. Or maybe he can’t deal but he loves you enough to pretend to. What do I know?” She nudges his arm until he looks at her and answers her smile with something he hopes resembles one of his own. “I’ve only known him maybe five days. Still. He hasn’t run.”

“No, he hasn’t,” Adam says quietly, flexing his fingers against the countertop, bracing himself for the admission that’s embarrassing as hell to make. "Though perhaps he should have done. From me."

Because frankly, Sebastian has been the more rational of the two of them this week, when he’s had every right to spend 16 hours of every day they’ve been here locked in the bathroom. Sebastian has instead spent time with all of the Crawfords, they all like him, and he doesn’t seem to have been anxious at all after their first night.

Whereas Adam has been having frosting fights, getting arrested for streaking, and hijacking the family car to go out of his way to avoid encountering Brendan for even thirty seconds.

If there’s an insane Crawford Sebastian should be running from, it’s Adam.

But he hasn’t.

“He hasn’t run from you, either, you big pillock,” Chloe echoes his thought with exasperation and, for good measure, another of her patented around-the-world eyerolls. “Though I do entirely agree with you that he has grounds to do so.” When he still dithers, she straight up punches him in the arm. “Adam! For the love of god, you stripped nearly naked in front of your ex-boyfriend and got yourself arrested for the trouble! And Sebastian is still here! What does that tell you?”

Well. Put that way, she does have a point. And a wicked right hook.

“That he loves me,” Adam admits with reluctance as he rubs the sore spot on his bicep. Picking up the bowl of extract and egg, he resumes his work on the cake batter, blending liquid ingredients into dry. “He really must. Because justified or not, I have been something of an idiot.”

“You are a prize of extremely dubious value, but yes, I expect he actually does,” Chloe says dryly as she greases the next cake pan. “Stubborn, pigheaded thing that you are and all. You certainly are your brother’s brother. And your mother’s son. Don’t for one moment think I don’t know where it came from. I’m not sure what I fear more out of my eventual motherhood, the potential for twins or the Cunningham stubbornness...”

Startled by the comparison, Adam tunes Chloe out and pauses with his spoon hanging over the bowl, dripping batter. He stands blinking like a Christmas tree, staring out the kitchen window and seeing nothing. _Oh, my god._

It is true that difficulty with admitting he might be in the wrong even a little seems to be a distinct genetic trait within his family. Well. Within a small, select group. Not the twins. Not Tim. Certainly not Stephen.

No, this week has shown that within the Crawford family as it is shaped today, that elite club of stubborn arses is populated strictly by Moira, Brendan...and Adam.

Hm. He and Brendan might have more in common than he thought. Which is to say, they might have anything at all in common, really. Adam holds back the urge to regurgitate his breakfast into the cake batter. He shakes his head, and then again, but he can’t dislodge the thought of it now that it’s there, buzzing around like a gigantic and disgusting housefly. He and Brendan share the one trait that’s made it impossible for them to even talk to each other all week. And now that Adam knows it, he can’t continue to hope the problem between himself and his brother will just vanish. The costs are much too high, the repercussions this week alone an astounding litany of shame.

Adam’s quarrel with Brendan has stuck Sebastian in the middle of a family conflict that isn’t his, frustrated Tim, annoyed the twins, and has kept Chloe in a nearly constant flood of tears and thwarted peacemaking attempts for five days. Not that she doesn’t deserve to stew in it all for a bit still, given her selfishness and breathtaking issues with obtaining consent to open negotiations, but Adam has to admit that in the end, she’d meant well. Her goal had been to try and achieve peace. The problem was, that wasn’t her job.

As crucifying as it is, as sour as it lies on his tongue, he and Brendan are the ones with the power to start to end this. And he’s pretty sure he’s more likely to take the first steps towards the finish line than Brendan.

Adam takes a deep breath and forces himself to start stirring again. “Listen, Cee,” he begins, his thoughts still nebulous and forming even as he opens his mouth.

Out in the family room, the phone rings, cutting him off. “Hold that thought,” Chloe says with a breathless smile, spinning around and sprinting away. “Hello? Oh...hey.”

Well. He can always try again when she's done. Adam cocks an ear towards the family room to listen in. It’s not really being nosy if Chloe’s got a phone voice like a foghorn, is it?

"Sorry. What?" Chloe's voice leaps a good half an octave up the scale. "Say that again?"

Hm. That doesn't sound good.

"Right. Okay. Right. Um, shit." The batter is smooth and all ready for Adam to start pouring the it into the next greased pan, but Chloe's agitation can nearly be felt from the next room, and he can hear her pacing, so he just keeps slowly, slowly stirring. "Christ all bloody mighty. Fuck. Okay. Stay there. We'll come in the truck, we'll call Tim."

The phone makes a noisy clunk as it falls down into its cradle. The next sound Adam hears is Chloe muffling a scream into the palms of her hands, and oh, okay, this is...it’s not sounding good.

Sharp beeps follow as Chloe snatches the phone back up and dials. " _Brendan James Crawford,"_ Adam hears her hiss, and while he doesn't normally make a habit of wanting to be his brother at all in the first place, in this moment there is nothing he has ever wanted _less._ Whatever is happening, Brendan has fucked up.

Hm. His spoon stills. Brendan has fucked up. That...that cannot be good. Unease uncoils at the base of Adam’s spine, snaking along his nerves.

"I don't know what has possessed you to do what you did, Brendan, but this..." A pause, like the calm before the storm. "You know _exactly_ what you did! _Exactly!_ And guess what, Brendan, just guess what's happened now." Another seething pause, and Adam clutches at the spoon in his hand. "No. No, it has  _not_ all gone well and everything is fine. No, it's gone all sorts of tits up and there is now a line for who will want to kill you first, you wanking idiot."

With effort, Adam goes back to stirring, stirring, stirring. Brendan was supposed to be with Sebastian. If something went wrong...

"Well, he's hurt. Yes, Brendan. Hurt. We're going to go get him now." Adam's heart stops as Chloe rages on at his brother. "Sack up and get to the house. We'll meet you there. No. No, you can't come with us to get him! Go to the house and wait!"

Ice has settled into a ball in the pit of Adam's stomach, but he starts again with slowly mixing the batter, telling himself to be calm. Maybe it's not Sebastian who’s hurt, maybe there's a slim chance Brendan hasn't gone and done the most completely stupid thing right when Adam was about to give him the chance to speak...

And it almost works, almost, but then Chloe smashes the phone down into its cradle with enough force to break it - he hears the plastic crack, and her muffled curse. That makes him pause, thoughts rampant with dread. “Chloe?”

When she appears in the kitchen doorway, he drops his spoon and stops stirring for good. Chloe's face is pink, the pink that he remembers is a warning sign, the pink that means she’s going to blow her top and someone is going to lose their head. Her hair is pulled out of its ponytail into a cloud of loose curls on the left side of her head, like she’s wound her fist into it and tugged in frustration. And her eyes - her eyes are burning dark and tears are really streaming down her cheeks. Genuine tears, this time, of this there is no doubt.

She looks positively terrifying, and the lump of ice in Adam’s stomach sends rivers of cold all through him. “Chloe…”

“The wedding is off,” she informs him with a hysterical cackle. “Sorry, but I’m going to have to kill my fiancé, and there’s just no room in the chapel schedule for a wedding _and_ a funeral.”

***

“Say it. Just bloody say it.” Chloe grinds the gears of the truck, spinning the steering wheel in a violent reversal out of the drive that leaves them spitting mud and gravel in their wake. “Go on! Yes, yes, you told me so!”

But Adam isn’t sure he can say much of anything, shocked senseless as he is in the passenger seat. He’s still trying to wrap his head around what Chloe had told him while she switched off the oven, ran around grabbing her keys and wallet, and shoved him bodily out the door.

Sebastian really is hurt.

It really is Brendan’s fault.

And in a surprising, hurtful twist, Tim and the twins had known it might happen, but hadn’t said anything to anyone. Adam certainly hadn’t seen that coming.

 _I may well be an only child by the time this evening is done_.

"They're not far. Brendan just took him to the lake," Chloe is explaining, pushing the truck to speeds it was never meant to achieve and hurling it around the turnoff to the lake in a squeal of black rubber. "But he can’t really walk, Rhiannon said. I have some ideas for how we can get him out, though."

He still can't speak, can't even nod his head in any sort of reply. Adam is frozen with his fingers clutched white-knuckle tight around the roof handle of the truck, trying and failing to make sense of anything that's happened.

His siblings had all failed him, but worse - he'd failed. He'd failed Sebastian, hadn't kept him safe. Hadn't thought there was really a need.

 _There shouldn't have been a need._ Adam doesn't care that partner pranks are a longstanding tradition in this family. Brendan should have known that Sebastian would have to be off limits. He should have _known._

 _He knew._ Adam knows it like his name. _He just didn't care._

He could strangle Brendan in this moment. Cheerfully and with no regrets, he could absolutely do it. And amends of any kind are _certainly_ off the table now.

Adam keeps his mind on that. Firmly on that. Because if he really starts in on how he got too wrapped up in himself to be useful to Sebastian he’ll go mad...

Chloe pulls the truck up to a screeching halt at the end of the street, right next to where the Crawford family minivan is parked. She'd called Tim on her mobile on the way out the door - how had he beaten them there?

No matter. In the absence of Brendan, Adam will totally settle for whaling on the next brother in line. Pitching himself out of the truck, he almost falls over in his fury, saving himself at the last minute with a grab onto the truck bed. He rights himself and strides over to the van, pointing at Tim. “You!”

Tim already has his hands up in surrender. “Yes, me. I know, Adam. I am a massive cock. Absolutely. Yes, I knew what Brendan had planned. No, I didn’t tell Sebastian."

"I could kill you." Adam pauses. This brother he actually sort of likes. "Well. I could hurt you _very badly_."

"And I'd probably let you," Tim says, tone mild and hands still up. "I deserve it for listening to the rather stupidly optimistic part of me that had some ridiculous hopes that Brendan would actually listen to me about this.”

Tim's calm acceptance and contrition is infuriating, not to even mention the reminder that he hadn't stopped this debacle. Adam shakes it off and winds himself back up. "You could have told me! Told Chloe! Mum! Anyone."

"I also could have ditched my afternoon jog and errands to go with Brendan and Sebastian, and I didn't." Tim drops his hands, looking guilty in a way that starts to defuse Adam's anger. "I know what I could have done, Adam. I admit that I made a mistake - several of them. Monumentally massive ones. I'm sorry. This is as much my fault as it is Brendan’s."

Damn it. Dealing with the actual reasonable siblings who know how to apologize really puts a damper on one’s justified rage. Adam does his best to hang on to at least a shred. "And Rhiannon -"

"Was just trying, in her rather misguided teenage way, to keep the peace. From what I gather, anyway. She's quite distressed about Sebastian getting hurt as it is." Tim moves his hand as if to touch Adam’s shoulder, but seems to think better of it and pulls away. "She is fully aware of her mistakes as well, Adam. Keep that in mind before you tear into her? She and Rebecca went to a lot of trouble trying to handle this themselves, and they did mean well."

Ah, ah, there it is - he’s angry all over again. At Brendan, his siblings...himself. “Everyone has meant well all week,” Adam snaps, thinking of Chloe’s fit in the kitchen and clenching his fists. To think he’d been on the verge of hearing Brendan out! “And look where it’s got us.”

That’s enough, he’s had enough. Adam doesn’t wait for Tim’s answer before turning and scaling the big wooden fence that’s separating him from Sebastian. There are, after all, more important things.

Adrenaline and anger boost him over the barrier in a hurry, and the second, chain-link fence is even easier to climb. Swinging over the top of it and dropping, Adam nearly lands right on top of David. "Adam! Watch it!"

"Sorry." He nearly can't breathe as he looks around. "Where's Sebastian?"

"Baaaaaaaaaabe," a voice burbles from the vicinity of his knees, and Adam glances down. On the ground, one foot in a trainer and the other in a bandage, his face chalk white and making his freckles stand out in stark relief, Sebastian smiles, a tiny, weak, lopsided facsimile of a smile, and waves. “Hi.”

Adam is down at Sebastian's side in a flash. "Oh my god, darling." His heart is abruptly going a thousand miles a minute, pounding with the speed of a hummingbird and the power of a cannonball strike. Reaching out his hands, he touches Sebastian’s hair, his face, hands like birds that can’t settle on a perch. “My god. You -”

“I’m fine. Fiiiiiiine.” Sebastian waves at his ankle. "It's not broken, I'm not dead, I'm fine. Have you seriously been ogling David over breakfast this week?"

Adam pulls back to stare. "What?"

"Nothing." But he's blushing, and so is David, and Adam wonders what the hell he's missed in just a few hours.

Today is really turning into quite the clusterfuck.

Tim comes over the fence next before Adam can assemble enough coherent thoughts to chase the David question down. "Okay, so, this fence is not going to be a problem." He holds up a large pair of heavy-duty wire cutters. "Cee had these in the back of her truck. We'll just cut through this fence for now and come back later to patch it back up."

David points his chin at the next fence as Chloe comes over the chain link one. "What about the wooden fortress over there?"

"Tim and Adam standing on the cross braces to hang over the top pulling Sebastian up, you and me and Rhiannon pushing him up from the bottom," Chloe says, hitting the ground with a grunt. "Won't be easy, or fun or anything approaching an entertaining afternoon activity, but with some careful maneuvering, it should work. Had to do it one time when Janey Fielding got tripping on magic mushroom tea, I’m well practiced at it."

Rhiannon stands up from where she’d been perched at Sebastian’s side and frowns at the fence. "Yeah, but how's he get down once we get him up to the top?"

"He swings over, Adam and Tim drop down, and then they help him the rest of the way." Chloe shrugs. “Lemon squeezy.”

Well. They do seem to have it all well in hand. Adam tries not to let his eyes narrow in a glare. _Pity any of this is needed in the first place._

Chloe kneels next to Sebastian, all over guilt. "I'm so sorry, Sebastian. My fiancé is an idiot."

"So I've heard." He's still got on his lopsided smile, and he swings an arm around her neck for a hug. "You're too good for him."

"It's true," Chloe agrees, sniffling a little. "I'm second-guessing my life choices just now."

Sebastian leans in close. "You could marry _me._ Or Adam, if you really want a Crawford. We could take you..." He lets his free hand waft through the air. "Faaaaaar away from here. Adam makes excellent spaghetti. And pancakes. Are you sold on it yet? What if I told you about our  _awesome_ dogs?"

Chloe giggles through her sniffles and Adam stares down at his boyfriend. "Are you stoned?"

"Oh, yeah," Sebastian confirms with an emphatic nod and broad dopey smile. “Can we take Chloe home with us?”

Rhiannon sidles up next to Adam while he tries to think of _any_ good answer to Sebastian’s question, standing on the balls of her feet to get to his ear. "He took a Xanax," she whispers, and oh, now everything is very clear. "Said he didn't want everyone to know. It hit him pretty hard, Adam. Is it a high dose?"

That means Sebastian had a panic attack, Adam realizes. _Another tick in the "Kill Brendan" column. What court would convict me?_ He keeps his tone mild, though, as he replies. "No, he just doesn't take it often, so it's like someone who doesn't drink doing a bunch of tequila slammers. So he says." Watching Sebastian, Adam shakes his head to see how bonelessly placid his boyfriend is, nothing like his usual strung-tight and whipcord-quick self. "I don't know how everyone else wouldn't guess _something_ is going on..."

"Chloe and Tim are busy committing vandalism to get him out," Rhiannon reminds him, waving her hand at the others. "And David..." Her mouth twists, puckering like she's just sucked on a lemon. "David has been too distracted by the fact that all three of you have a thing for each other to really notice the state of Sebastian."

Oh, there’s that again. "Okay, what is going on with that?"

"I have no idea and frankly want nothing to do with it." She shudders. "Sort it out amongst yourselves."

No useful answer there, then. Adam packs in the automatic retort he wants to make. There are more important issues to tackle with Rhiannon anyway. "Fine, we will." He turns to face her square on, setting his jaw and changing the subject. "Listen. You know this is fucked up, right, Rhiannon? I wish you'd told me."

She looks down at her feet, one crossed over the other as she twists her fingers. "We were trying to keep things from getting messy."

"Fell down a bit on that one, I think." It’s an effort to confine it to just that much, but he manages.

Rhiannon’s skin goes a painful red from hairline to throat. "I know. I'm sorry. We fucked it completely up."

Adam’s eyebrow hits his hairline before he even knows it’s arching. “Do you think?”

But as angry as he is at everyone involved, even Adam’s anger can’t sustain itself against the genuine, miserable remorse of his teenage sister as she keeps talking. “I feel awful, Adam. We thought we could deal with it and no one would be the wiser...it seemed like a good idea at the time. We wanted to help. I’m so sorry. Rebecca will be, too. Believe me.”

He closes his eyes, and the anger recedes again. _Save it for Brendan._

"Adam," Tim calls out over his shoulder, wrestling with the metal cutter while David and Chloe tug back the chain links. "We've almost got this one open. Can the two of you get him to his feet?"

There's no more time for apologies or explanations, then, and all Adam can focus on is trying to get Sebastian out in one piece.

They manage, not perfectly but they do it, the now broken open chain link fence a snap to get through. The wooden fence is, as they'd all expected, more of a challenge. Sebastian's yelps of pain as he whacks his ankle more than once against the wood will fuel Adam’s anger for a long time, along with his gritted teeth and shining eyes when they finally get him down to the ground again.

Adam will forgive Tim, Rhiannon, and Rebecca for their parts in this in time, he knows. He can’t ever forgive Brendan, though. For anything. Not now. It seems ridiculous that he was even thinking about it earlier.

"We should take him to A&E," David says as they load Sebastian into the van. "Get that properly checked out."

"I just want to get to the house," Sebastian says, exhaustion all through his voice. "We can go to the hospital later. Tomorrow. I want a bath, and tea, and...just get to the house."

"As you wish." Tim gently tucks Sebastian's bag under the seat and closes the van door. "We'll be there in less than five minutes. Less than three, even. David and Chloe and Rhi will follow along behind."

Silence fills the van as Adam holds Sebastian tight in his arms as if he could be taken away. There was no chance, he knows intellectually, that he would have _lost_ Sebastian, not really. The wooded area is small, a sprained ankle not life threatening. Even if Rhiannon hadn't followed him, eventually they'd all have realized Sebastian was missing and Brendan would have been forced to confess, and they'd have retrieved him. 

But it _feels_ like he could have lost Sebastian today. Adam feels the terror of it in his chest like wood burned to ash, in the sour tangle in the pit of his stomach. It makes him want to get back to the house, pack up their things, and get the hell out of this place, go home where they're safe. He squeezes tighter.

“Not one squirrel,” Sebastian mumbles, shifting and snuggling further down into Adam’s arms.

“What?”

“No squirrels came to me while I was out there. I’m almost disappointed.”

Adam can’t help but chuckle, but it’s a sad chuckle, a tired one, all he can muster. “We can go home tomorrow, if you want. Have you back in Central Park with your fluffy tailed groupies by Saturday morning.” The suggestion is out before he's really thought about offering it, but he doesn't regret it. Actually, it’s the best idea he’s had all week.

Blinking Sebastian tilts his head to look up at Adam. “But the wedding.”

As if he could be bothered to care. “Sod the wedding. I shouldn’t have brought you here in the first place. I’m so sorry, love.”

"Don't be...it's..." Sebastian yawns. "It's okay. I don't want to go home, Adam. We can't afford to change our tickets."

"We can -" he starts, but Sebastian is already rolling his head back and forth.

"No," he says, and there's concrete in the surprisingly alert words. "No more hiding from this, Adam. You're better than that." And he flops back into snuggly pliability while Adam presses his lips into a tight line.

_I don't want to be better than that._

He opens his mouth to say as much, but gets interrupted by Tim calling, "We're here," and they have to get Sebastian into the house.

Into the house, where Brendan presumably is, having followed Chloe’s directions. Adam’s skin crawls. _Here we go_.

It’s a full house in the family room - Moira standing with Stephen, a strangely Rhiannon-looking Rebecca sitting on her hands on the sofa. But Adam's eyes go right to Brendan when he and Tim get through the front door, and only his position under Sebastian's arm keeps him from anything more proactive than a growled, "You son of a bitch."

Moira raises a hand and imposes herself between her sons, a powerhouse of authority despite the fact they're each a good head taller than her. Her chin lifts and sets with her blue eyes into a look that says she will brook no nonsense. "Adam, let's be calm. You have every right to be angry -"

"You're damn right I do, Mum!" He has to force himself to loosen his jaw, to stop grinding his teeth long enough to get words through them. "I do, Sebastian sure as hell does. Of all the things you could do to me, Brendan, attacking my partner is the lowest -"

"It wasn't an attack!" Brendan protests, jumping up from where he’d been sitting next to Rebecca on the sofa. "I wouldn't! It was supposed to be a joke, Adam, that's all."

Adam wonders if his eyes really could pop out of his head. They certainly seem to be making a 100 percent effort. "Does this look in any way _funny_ to you?"

Eyes passing over the tableau of Tim and Adam holding a rather limp Sebastian upright, Brendan swallows. "Of course it doesn't, Adam, but I didn't mean -"

"What you meant doesn't matter! What happened matters!" Adam barely notices his mother ducking away, conceding the ground to the pair of them. The room is still apart from the tension that crackles between himself and his brother. He wishes it were real electricity, that he could shock sense and guilt into Brendan. “He could have been stuck there all night, lost, whether he got hurt or not.”

Brendan shakes his head. “No, I’d have gone back later, or a patrol would have gone by -”

“And that’s better, is it?” Adam’s laugh erupts out of him, bitter and hot with rage. “Getting my boyfriend - my _American boyfriend_ \- arrested for trespassing in a country that isn’t his?” He watches his oldest brother closely, and wants to laugh again at the look of slow dawning comprehension that creeps across Brendan’s face. “Oh, that never occurred to you, did it? You’re thick, you’re so thick.”

Tim glances between the two of them, alert to the rising tension. “Adam,” he begins, but shuts up when Adam slices a glare his way.

Brendan shakes his head, slowly. “I didn’t mean -”

“You never do.” He clings to Sebastian, like he’s being supported as much as he’s doing the supporting. The solid feel of Sebastian’s waist under his arm, their hands linked where Sebastian’s arm crosses his shoulder, these things keep him tethered, but it’s tenuous, he’s so angry, all the anger he’d bottled away from TIm and Rhiannon is spilling out faster and faster now. “You know what else you never do? You never admit you’re wrong. You never apologize.”

A fiery flush of red darkens Brendan’s face. “Hey, now.”

“You never say you’re sorry,” Adam continues, taking one shaky, angry breath after another. “Tim and Rhiannon said they were sorry. Rebecca would apologize if I let her get a word in edgewise, but you?” He laughs again, so brittle it could break. “Not you. Never you. All you’ve said since we got in here is that you never meant to do it.”

At his sides, Brendan’s fingers curl into fists. “Well, I didn’t.”

Still no apology. Only excuses. Adam’s gossamer thin control evaporates.

“And you never understand the harm you do.” He ducks out from under Sebastian’s arm, letting David take his place. As he stalks over to Brendan, he goes over the dozens of scenarios that have been running through his mind since he’d first seen Sebastian on the ground, ashen and in pain. “What’s worse is that you don’t seem to care. You have never cared. And it wasn’t enough to treat me like crap all my life, you hurt the one person I love above anything else in the world. That is low, even for you, that’s low, and that I cannot let slide.”

Brendan backs away, alarm starting to rise in his eyes. “Adam, listen, let me, I actually am sorry -”

It’s laughable. “Too little, too late. Doesn’t matter anymore.” Adam keeps stepping forward, slowly, flexing his fingers. He’s taking a rather perverse pleasure in the wariness on his brother’s face.

“No, you don’t get it, I’m _sorry_ , I didn’t _mean_ -”

“I don’t care.” He feels himself smiling, knows it has to be a nasty parody of his usual cheer. “It. Doesn’t. Matter.”

Moira steps forward again. “Adam. Darling. Please.”

“No, Mum.” As gently as he can, he brushes past her, eyes fixed on Brendan. Brendan, who has stopped retreating, who is now standing straight up, shoulders back and chin set. “This has been a long time coming.” Tilting his chin up. he closes the distance between himself and Brendan, standing now at arm’s length and as close as he’s been to his brother in years. “A long time coming,” he repeats, taking a deep breath.

Without another word, Adam pulls back and swings out, landing a direct hit on Brendan’s face that sends him sprawling to the floor.

***

"What was that?” Sebastian asks for the fourth confused time in as many minutes, looking back down over his shoulder as if he could see, from the second floor, where everyone’s milling around the living room, some helping Brendan, some trying to work out what to do next. Adam had left them all to it, turning in the shocked and silent aftermath to grab his boyfriend and physically haul him upstairs to their room. It had taken a little time for the silence to collapse into mayhem, and they were well on their way before that happened, thank god.

“I punched my brother,” Adam says after considering and discarding a dozen flip responses to the question. “I hope I got him in the eye. He deserves a good black eye that he didn’t get playing rugby or football.”

“Was that strictly necessary, though?” They’re at the stairs to the loft, too narrow and steep for them to go up side by side. Sebastian solves the problem by bracing his hands on the wall railings and hoisting himself up, one step at a time. “I mean, punching, pretty sure that’s something I never expected from you, and the wedding -”

“Oh, fuck the wedding.” It comes out in a snap he’s too exasperated to feel guilty about right now. He reaches up to place his hands on Sebastian’s waist for balance while Sebastian swings himself up the stairs. “And yes, thank you, it was necessary. I think it was something I probably should have done quite a few years ago, might have stopped half this mess in its tracks.”

Sebastian opens the door and hobbles into their room. "I don't know..." he says, a worried look on his face as he pulls off his knitted cap, running a hand through his rumpled hair.

“Too late now. Don’t worry about it, just get out of those clothes. You wanted a bath, I believe.” There is a desperate need to change the subject, if only for a minute. Adam bends down to pull a bottle of Scotch and a highball glass out of his desk. Setting them down with a clank, he heads into the bathroom to meddle with the taps, running water until it pours out soothing and warm into the ancient clawfoot tub. “And tea, but I’ll do you one better there. Come on, love. Strip.”

It is a testament to Sebastian’s exhaustion and the drugs that he doesn’t even whip back a ribald comment, simply sheds his layers of clothing and pads into the bathroom, sliding into the filling tub without so much as a murmur. Adam leaves him to recline and fetches up the Scotch, pouring out a generous measure to bring back to the bathroom. “Drink up.”

“Mm.” Eyes closed, Sebastian reaches for the glass and takes a sip, sitting straight up and wide-eyed in the next moment. “Damn. Wow. That’s good.”

“Best in Dad’s liquor cabinet. I pinched it Tuesday after the frosting thing with Chloe. You can thank him later.” He makes a move to go back out to the bedroom, but Sebastian’s hand reaches out and snags him by the leg of his jeans.

“Stay,” Sebastian says, tugging gently at the denim. “Get in with me.”

Adam glances at the tub. “Bit crowded.”

“I don’t care. It’s been a hell of a day. Please?”

They never get to bathe together at home, and admittedly, Adam wouldn’t mind keeping close to Sebastian for a while longer, not while he’s still feeling a frisson of panic at the events of the last hours. He doesn’t have to really think about his response. “Yeah. Give me a minute, though? We need more towels and I want to put some music on. Something calming, so that I don’t end up nicking one of your Xanax.”

He pops his iPod into the clock dock and turns it on before sneaking down to the second floor linen cupboard. As quiet as a mouse, he pulls towels down, tilting an ear towards the family room. Murmurs now, nothing he can really make out. Adam begins to turn away from the cupboard - and something catches his eye.

Fishing the bright blue oversized bedsheet out of the back of the middle shelf, he adds it to his pile and heads silently back upstairs.

“What took so long?” Sebastian asks when Adam finally hustles back into the bathroom and starts taking his clothing off. “I had to run more hot water in.”

“I had to move slow, you know, be quiet and all.” He tosses his shirt to the floor and starts in on his jeans, kicking his trainers off at the same time. “If they heard me moving around outside of the bedroom they’d come try to make me go downstairs and discuss it, and I’m not up for that yet.”

It’s not a lie, but it is a minor expansion of the truth. For a good cause, though, maybe the very best of them. Adam hides a smile as he strips the rest of the way down.

They manage the fit, only just. Adam slips in behind Sebastian, knees bent so he can fit all in. Sebastian rests his injured ankle on a towel draped over the side of the tub and leans back against Adam’s chest, sipping at the Scotch and passing the glass back. Long, companionable minutes go by with them trading the Scotch back and forth and just soaking in the hot water.

“I think alcohol is contraindicated with Xanax,” Sebastian says after a while, a dark little laugh following his pronouncement.

Adam could hit himself. And does, a small but solid smack to his forehead. “Damn it. So it is.”

“It’s okay. I only had a few little sips. Take the rest.” Sebastian passes the glass back. “You need it more than I do.”

That is possibly entirely true. “Well. I won’t turn it down.” He breathes in the scent of the drink, letting the fumes fill his nose. It feels like they could go right to his brain - he wishes they could, winding in and calming his burning thoughts. Adam gulps down the lump in his throat. “Darling, I...I’m sorry about my brother,” he says, halting and guilty. “I knew he was a fucking dick, but this -”

“Shh,” Sebastian takes Adam’s free hand and kisses it, biting down a little for emphasis. “I’ve done a lot worse.” 

Adam pulls his hand back. “No, Sebastian -”

“Hell, this is probably karma for what I did to Blaine.” Sebastian shrugs, like he really doesn’t care, and Adam can’t understand that for a minute. “Honestly, it was a joke, Adam. I believe Brendan when he says that. It just...it went wrong.”

“Joke? Went wrong?” He needs a bigger gulp of Scotch to tackle this. It burns down his throat, harsher as he breathes in. “You are _injured_. You had a panic attack. What if Rhiannon hadn’t followed you? You’d still be there, maybe -”

Sebastian twists his head back to look at Adam, one eyebrow up. The Xanax stupor seems to be wearing off. “Do you really think I’d still be stuck there? I’m not that useless. I had a plan before I tripped over a giant tree root.”

Shame bows Adam's head even as he blushes. “No, of course not. I just mean - “

“I know.” Sebastian settles back. “Look. I appreciate you being furious on my behalf. I’m just saying...I’m saying it’s not necessary, Adam. Seriously.”

"Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me to make it up with him,” Adam replies, laughing bitterly. He’s still astounded he’d even entertained the notion for a second.

Sebastian is silent for too long. Much, much too long. Long enough that Adam suspects he’s not going to like what he hears. “I’m not thinking it’s a bad idea, to be honest.”

Sometimes, Adam reflects, it really doesn't pay to be right. His eyes once again make their best effort to escape as he stares at his partner. “You must be joking, Sebastian. You should have been able to go with Brendan without worrying about nearly breaking your neck.” It’s a heated statement, and he’s so angry he nearly chokes on his sip of Scotch. “It’s fucking ridiculous of him to behave this way.”

Sebastian’s damp shoulder moves against Adam’s skin in a shrug. “I won’t argue with you on that.”

"Then how can you -"

“I'm not saying, I mean, it's your call,” Sebastian assures him, fumbling for words. “I completely understand you being pissed off at him and it’s your  _r_ _ight_ to be. But I could be mad too, and...god, Adam.” He inhales, and Adam can hear the shudder in the air. “I’ve had enough of holding on to anger in my life, that’s all. I remember being so furious with Greg, and that did so much damage in only a year. I can’t imagine what you must feel like with a lifetime of that.”

It’s a few words, just a few, but they deflate Adam as effectively as a pin to a balloon. Of course Sebastian would know the difficulties of letting go. Adam feels like a complete fool for forgetting that.

“It just festers,” Sebastian continues quietly. “No one deserves to sit with that and feel it, I don’t know. Burning. Turning into poison. I would do anything for you to not feel it.”

Adam lets another drop of Scotch roll over his tongue, slide down his throat to join the lump of loosening, melting anger in his stomach. “It's not easy. Letting go, that is."

Sebastian nods. “That’s why I’m just...suggesting.”

The problem is that it's a _good_ suggestion.

A suggestion unmotivated by selfishness, presented by the one person in the world who has more than a good idea of how Adam has felt all this time. The logic, in this setting, from this person, is beautiful in its simplicity.

Maybe it's not fair, maybe it's letting Brendan off the hook too easily.

But maybe it's a weight Adam can just put down at last. He presses the glass, cool and slick with condensation, to his forehead. Where his brain should be feels like a taut rubber band has just snapped; the relief is overwhelming. "Oh."

A hand squeezes his knee with gentle affection. "I'll support you either way," Sebastian says, calm but firm.

Adam cocks his head to survey his partner. There’s a new sort of relaxation to Sebastian, something still and quiet taking the place of the constant anxiety Adam’s used to. "You're rather zen about all this."

Sebastian waves his hand. "Good drugs."

"No," Adam disagrees. "You've been very zen all week. Whereas I've acted like a prize idiot the whole time."

"Maybe a little," Sebastian confirms, turning slightly so Adam can see his teasing smirk. "That's okay, though. I'll marry you anyway."

The words hang in the air for a moment, and the conversation is quite thoroughly derailed. Adam blinks his eyes open again, wondering if his hearing is going. "Come again?"

Sebastian's eyes go wide. "Oh. I said that out loud."

Adam still isn't sure he heard correctly. It's the last thing he ever expected _to_ hear, ever, but especially now, of all times. He can't help but laugh. "Said what out loud, exactly?"

"That I'll marry you anyway." And when Adam at last glances down in astonishment at Sebastian he can see that it's true. True and real and oh dear god. "And, um, I will. If you want to."

Adam can’t even begin to speak. Water drips from the tub faucet. Martha Wainwright and Gary Lightbody sing, faint but sweet from deep in the bedroom, about reuniting lovers. Sebastian is holding his breath and his eyes - so bright, so green like a field of grass, so surprised and pleased with himself - speak volumes.

Adam's entire world narrows down to those two small words as important as any book. _Marry me_. Even though he’s been thinking about them for months, they’re still heavy, hanging in the air with all the substance of life. _Marry me_. It’s everything he’s wanted and never known when to bring it up.

No wonder Adam had never found the right time. In the end, it had never been his question to ask.

Everything else is entirely forgotten, and he has to swallow twice before he is finally able to even attempt to get words out. “We’re naked,” he wheezes out on a laugh. “Oh my god, you’re proposing and we’re naked, we’re in the bath.”

“Yeah, we are.” Sebastian’s laugh is magic, a thing of joy and delight. “You know, it seems appropriate?”

“It does. It really, really does.” It’s perfect, exactly perfect. Unexpected and perfect. "Is it because of Brendan and Chloe and the whole..." Adam waves his hands around. "Just general sort of wedding atmosphere we've been soaking in this week?"

"It's because I love you." Sebastian rolls over, a little awkwardly as he accommodates his long legs and injury, splashing water over the side of the tub. He lies on Adam's chest, pinning him down. "Because when I have a panic attack, you’re my top ten reasons to grit my teeth through it. Because you gave a sad bastard drunk a cookie and invited him home for tea. Because you believe in me. Because you’ll punch your brother for me. Because you love me.” He stops.  “I mean, you are clinically _insane_ , but -”

“Excuse me,” Adam protests, but half-heartedly. His anger at Brendan may yet be justified, but he’s still the one that got arrested. He can’t really fight the assessment.

Sebastian hasn’t taken his eyes off of Adam. “I didn’t mean to just come out with a proposal, but I’m not taking it back. I've watched you with your family all week. I've watched your family all week. I've had all these thoughts about us in the future, Adam, and they scare the crap out of me but...I want that. With you. Sex and pancakes and god, I even started thinking of _kids._ We could have kids."

The water is shaking - no, Adam is trembling, and it’s making the water tremble with him. “Sebastian -”

He stops, just stops, because what can he say? There are no words, no thoughts, nothing at all Adam can express in this moment. He sits still but for his shivering, the glass of Scotch dangling precariously from his fingers as he tries to sort through everything he's feeling, because all he can do right now is feel. "You really want to marry me,” Adam whispers, going back to the simplest, most important thing of all. “You seriously want us to get married."

Sebastian's pause for thought is a blatant put on. In less than a second, he's nodding. "I seriously do."

The angle is awkward, the water getting cold, but Adam takes Sebastian’s face in his hands, tastes the lingering flavor Scotch on his lips and breath, memorizes the droplets of water falling between his fingers. “But what about David?” he breathes as he leans back, a laugh almost splitting his chest open at the look on Sebastian’s face. “Would I be interrupting a new and torrid love affair there?”

“You’re ruining the moment,” Sebastian mutters with a wet slap to Adam’s bicep before going in for a series of nibbling kisses. “I’m not the one making eyes at him over breakfast anyway.”

“We could have him as an anniversary present.” Adam’s hands slide down over slick skin, his mouth sucks in Sebastian’s sharp exhalation of laughter. “I don’t think he’d mind, and the traditional fifth anniversary gift _is_ wood -”

“Shut up, you’re an idiot,” is all Adam hears before Sebastian grabs the sides of the tub and surges forward to cover Adam’s mouth with his.

It’s too cold, too awkward to stay in the tub though, so they get out, maneuvering so that they don’t have to spend more than a second or two not kissing as they towel each other dry.

Toweling dry, of course, comes with no small amount of surreptitious fondling and deep, chuckling moans.

Sebastian pulls his mouth away when they get into the bedroom and he sees what Adam’s done. “Oh my god. The staring. You covered up the staring. That’s what took you so long.”

Adam grins up at the blue bedsheet covering his poster wall, quite proud of himself for that one. “It is. I did.”

“God, I picked a great future husband,” Sebastian says, fumbling to pull Adam close and drag him into the bed.

There’s no more room for words there.

 _Yes_ , Adam spells with the tip of his tongue, a featherlight touch down Sebastian’s neck. _Yes_ , he breathes into the skin of his lover’s chest, warm against each rib. _Yes,_ his fingers press into the muscles of Sebastian’s thighs, leaving behind pink fingertip welts and shallow crescent-shaped nail marks.

He doesn’t say it aloud, only pours his affirmation and acceptance into every movement, each kiss, each touch, into the slow push and thrust of himself inside Sebastian’s body.

They move together, rising, falling, stroking, holding, fingers tangling together in a white knuckled grip of desperation. Sebastian’s free hand wraps around the back of Adam’s neck and pulls him down into a jerky, gasping kiss, their lips bumping and brushing past each other in the hectic riot of movement. _Yes,_ Adam thinks and lets it be carried out of his mouth on a wave of broken, wordless gasps that Sebastian sucks down into his lungs.

Adam handles Sebastian with care, holds the skin and bones and blood and sweat of the rest of his life in his hands and burns every second of now into his memory, every laugh and breath and moan and the single, surprising, sharp tear that slips from the corner of Sebastian’s eye.

 _Yes,_ says every cell in his body when he falls over the edge and brings Sebastian with him.

It rushes through his veins and electrifies his nerves as they come down, pulses into Adam’s fingertips as he reluctantly pulls free. But he doesn’t stop touching Sebastian, trailing his fingers down a chest and stomach dewed with a light layer of sweat. _I love you,_ he thinks, and then just says it. “I love you.”

“I love you.” Sebastian’s eyes are anxious, though, as he pillows his head on his hands and looks up at Adam. “Even if you haven’t _actually_ answered my question...”

Adam leans forward to kiss Sebastian long and sweet and not at all for the last time in their lives. Rolling over onto his stomach, he fishes between the layers of his bed for the little box hidden there, the little box he’s fancied Sebastian might feel through the mattress like _The Princess and The Pea._ He wraps his fingers around its edges and pulls it out, shifting back around to face the man he’s about to spend the rest of his life with.

“My answer,” he says, prying the box open and falling in love all over again when Sebastian’s mouth falls open in shock, “is yes.”

 

 


	11. To End Is To Begin

"I had one job."

It comes out in a mumble, nearly unintelligible, but it's enough to make Sebastian pull his astonished stare away from his left hand and look over to where Adam is rubbing and stretching his right one. "Say what?"

He feels like that came out sort of distracted, but there is a _ring_ on his _finger_ and of all the things he ever thought he'd really see himself doing in his lifetime, this is one that he didn't see coming and, well. Maybe it is forgivable that he's distracted. At least it's happy distraction. Deliriously happy, in fact. Sebastian is surprised he is not floating off of the bed.

It’s been at least thirty minutes since Adam pulled out the ring in answer to his proposal. Thirty minutes of getting dressed between kisses and laughter, of shaking knees and saying the word _fiancé_ to each other like that will make it sink in any faster.

Are they going to be this stupid when _fiancé_ becomes _husband_? Good god, he hopes so.

For right now, though, his _fiancé_ \- and Sebastian has to stifle his grin or it will just go way out of bounds - needs him. He shakes himself out of his reverie. "Sorry, babe. What do you mean, you had one job?"

Adam is sitting at the end of the bed, flexing his fingers with a wince. "We agreed that we were going to try to get through this week without punching one of my brothers." He points to the bruises purpled across his knuckles. "One job."

"Okay. When I suggested you consider talking to Brendan, I didn't necessarily mean start feeling bad about punching him." Sebastian can't keep back a wince of his own when he moves to sit with his boyfriend - _fiancé!_ \- at the end of the bed. His ankle is tender and throbbing, and he keeps bumping it against things in his carelessness. "I admit, I was confused about why you'd done it, but my ankle is really starting to bother me in a way that sex and an engagement ring can't really distract me from anymore, so you can go ahead and make your peace with the right hook."

He watches as Adam's face dissolves into a goofy, endearing grin. "Engagement ring." Bruised fingers cover Sebastian's hand and lift it to stare with the same astonishment that keeps bubbling up within Sebastian. "We're getting married."

"We are," Sebastian agrees, and for some reason it's still hilarious and fantastic and the best thing. "I'm going to marry you."

The joy vanishes from Adam's face again. "Oh, Chloe is going to kill me."

Damn it. "Can you be happy for _one minute_?"

"I have been happy for entire stretches of minutes," Adam retorts. "There was a very good period of time not thirty minutes ago in this very bed that involved your naked body and made me _very_ happy." He points toward the door. "But there is five feet, four inches of extremely nervous bride downstairs in my parents' front room who asked me not to propose to you until after her wedding, and if you think my right hook was something -"

"Oh, I believe you," Sebastian replies with his hands up, and then he stops, cocking his head. "Wait, Chloe knew you had the ring?" It makes sense, it makes complete and total sense, but he’s still somehow offended. “She never said a word. I thought she liked me.”

Adam leans over for a quick, hard kiss before getting to his feet and stretching towards the ceiling. “She loves you, but I threatened to lace the cake with laxatives if she so much as breathed a word. Among other things. I had a lot of ammunition.”

“Thirty years of friendship, I just bet you do.” He lays back down on the bed, not wanting to move, holding his hand over his head and just staring at the ring. Any minute now, Sebastian is sure, this will all prove to be a Xanax dream. He will wake up and there will be no ring, no Adam, it is entirely possible that he will wake up and find himself still in the woods, ankle screaming pain like bloody murder and a wild bear of some type stampeding down on him.

Adam’s face abruptly leaning over his makes Sebastian nearly jump out of his skin. “I keep telling you, there are no bears in that enclosure,” Adam says mildly before dropping a kiss on Sebastian’s nose and wandering off again. “Fish, perhaps, in the lake, but you’d have been more in danger of catching some horrid rare communicable scum disease than of being eaten by trout, had you fallen in.”

Not a Xanax dream, then. Though the Xanax has clearly not vacated his system. Oh, he hates the no filter thing so much. “I said all that out loud?”

“The ring is real, I am real, my bedroom is real, and there are no wild bears within, I would think, a thirty mile radius at the very least.” He emerges from the bathroom, sneakers in hand, and sits down on the bed to start putting them on. When he looks over his shoulder, his smile lights up the room. “It’s all real, Sebastian.”

Sebastian sits up, leans to wrap his arms around Adam’s waist and lay his head on his shoulder. A hand comes up to gently stroke the hair at the nape of his neck, another lays over his arm, and they sit together in silence, breathing in tandem.

He likes this real. He likes it a hell of a lot. That this is the reality of the rest of his life is probably the best thing to have happened to it.

It would be nice, he thinks now, if they could keep this reality. Stay here in the bedroom. And quietly forget the other part of the reality that, to be fair, did sort of get them to this very nice point. The part that is sitting downstairs in the family room waiting for them. With an ice pack somewhere on his face, probably.

Adam’s stomach growls.

“I’ve got Pop Tarts,” Sebastian mumbles into Adam’s shoulder. “In my bag. You’ve got the kettle, we can drink the tea black, we don’t have to go down yet.”

A sigh jostles his head and makes him lift it to see Adam looking morose. “Your bag is downstairs still. In the van, unless Tim brought it in. And I am considerably more hungry than convenience foods can handle.”

“I’m hurt,” Sebastian offers. “Injured. Probably a bad idea to handle the stairs in my condition, miracle I got up here in the first place. Maybe you can text Rebecca, she can sneak something up. No one suspects the quiet ones.”

“After what she and Rhiannon pulled today? Mum will be watching them like hawks, Rhi’s probably going into nicotine withdrawal and I bet Becca hasn’t been allowed to change into her own clothing. There’s no way.” Tilting his head to gaze at the sheet-covered ceiling, Adam lets out another gusty, but resolute sigh. “No. No choice. The clock of procrastination has just run out. I am not eager to face the music, but I have no choice.”

Sebastian squeezes him tighter. “Go out the window. Maybe that drainpipe will still hold you up. I’ll meet you back home next week. You don’t have to face Brendan if you don’t want to.”

“Wait.” Despite Sebastian’s grip, Adam manages to twist around to look him in the face. “An hour and change ago you were suggesting I consider forgiveness.”

“You could consider it from a distance,” Sebastian tries.

“You also reminded me, quite correctly, that we really can’t afford to skip out early. Change fees for our tickets at this point would be horrific, you’re right.” Adam’s hands move to unwrap Sebastian’s arms from around him, and fail. Sebastian hangs on and buries his head down in Adam’s neck again. “Darling. What’s this about?”

He feels like a six year old, but - “We’re happy, it’s a happy bubble, I want to stay in the happy bubble. Maybe we could afford change fees on _your_ ticket.”

It’s a nice bubble. There is no drama in the bubble. Downstairs, there’s drama. And besides, after all the times Adam’s rescued Sebastian - necessary or not - it seems like it is about time Sebastian did a little rescue mission of his own.

Adam snorts. “That’s the Xanax talking. You don’t have to rescue me from anything, Sebastian.”

“Oh, not again.” Now he never wants to emerge from the comfort of Adam’s neck, let alone the bedroom. “Jesus Christ, this is why I don’t like to take that shit. I have no inside voice, no inhibitions - ”

“Do you regret the proposal?” The wary anxiety in the inquiry cuts straight to Sebastian’s heart. And is the only thing that could make him pull his head out - figuratively and literally, really - and take Adam’s face in both of his hands.

“You make me happy,” he says, so, so conscious of the ring on his finger, so, so focused on the blue, bright eyes he loves so well. “You have made the entire last almost two years of my life more happy than I ever imagined was ever possible. You are kind, and generous, and maybe you kind of...Adam, you are a little on the over protective side - ”

 Adam pulls back, dismayed. “Oh, no.”

“No! No, I love that, I love that you give _so much of a fuck about me_ .” He feels his smile wobbling, his breath hitching. “I love _you._ I want to spend the rest of my life showing you that I give just as much of a fuck about you as you do about me. So no, I don’t regret the proposal, I want to marry you, I want to make you happy. The Xanax didn’t speak for me then. It just helped me get the words out.”

Adam’s hand comes up to cover Sebastian’s, and his eyes shine so bright, his smile is so sweet. “Oh, sweetheart. I know you give a fuck about me. You tried to convince me to climb down a seventy-five year old drainpipe to get me out of talking to my brother. If that’s not love - ”

“Shut up.” He tackles Adam down onto the bed, tickling until they’re both breathless from shouting with laughter.

When they can breathe again, when inhaling and looking at each other at the same time finally doesn’t set them off again, Adam rocks himself up off the bed and reaches out a hand for Sebastian.

“I love our happy bubble, too,” he says. “But it’s time to face our first challenge together as an almost-married couple.”

Sebastian lets himself get hauled carefully to his feet, leaning on Adam as they make their way towards the door. “If you’d taken my advice about the drainpipe, we could have had a more fun first challenge. Like talking Kurt down from the glitter pooping doves he’s gonna try to make us have at our wedding.”

“I was rather hoping you would tackle that one on your own...you do have _such_ a way with words when it comes to Kurt…”

And so, with bickering, limping, trembling, and more laughter - he hopes there’s always laughter - they make their way towards the first stop on the journey to their future. 

***

“Congratulations,” is Brendan’s first word to the pair of them when they finally arrive hand-in-hand in the family room. Sebastian panics a little at first - jesus, did they have someone listening at the door? But no. From his hunched over perch on the sofa, Brendan is looking directly at Adam with his one visible eye. The other is concealed behind a package of frozen spinach. “You landed a good one, little brother.”

He takes the spinach down and indeed, Adam does seem to have one hell of a right hook. No wonder his knuckles bruised - judging from the spread of red-violet on the left side of Brendan’s face, Adam landed right on his cheekbone. Sebastian has to wince at the sight of it. “Oh, my god.”

“Eh. Didn’t really get me _in_ the eye or knock out any teeth, it works out.” The spinach is set back in place. “I think Chloe’s still going to make me wear something called Dermablend. We’re going into London tomorrow to get it.”

“Where is Chloe?” Sebastian looks around the family room, realizing quickly why no one had come to get them. Only the three of them are left in the house, apparently. “Where is...everyone?”

Brendan lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “Went to get dinner. We’re to fend for ourselves.” He keeps his eye on Adam, steady and calm. “And talk.”

The expression on Adam’s face clears up for Sebastian what exactly a trapped animal looks like. Despite his bravado upstairs, his hand in Sebastian’s starts to shake. “Oh.”

“They would have waited for you,” Brendan says, directing his attention to Sebastian now. “But I owe you an apology too, and I figured you wouldn’t leave Adam alone with me.”

That’s an undeniable truth. “Yeah.” He squeezes Adam’s hand, hoping to still the trembling. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“I don’t blame you.” With care, Brendan gets to his feet, very slowly like he doesn’t want to startle Adam, and he waves towards the kitchen with his free hand. “So. Spag bol?”

And unaccountably, this is what gets Adam to relax. “Spag bol,” he says in agreement, and something vaguely resembling a smile softens the anxious lines etched in his face the smallest possible amount.

Sebastian will take it.

Ten minutes later, he’s safely in one of the kitchen chairs with a glass of red wine - “Medicinal,” Brendan said as he handed it over, and, well, maybe it’s been long enough since the Xanax and the scotch that Sebastian can take a few sips - watching the two of them perform a dance of spice bottle passing and can opening that can only be described as a work of art. “Okay, so, the two of you _can_ work together.”

“Please. This is old hat.” Brendan hands Adam two cans of tomatoes. “We’d have to get dinner for ourselves all the time when Mum was working on a book. This is the one dish we all got really good at.”

“Which is why I make it all the time at home.” Adam tosses a wink over his shoulder as he pops the cans open. “I could do this in my sleep.”

“Making dinner is about the _only_ time I wasn’t pulling shit on Adam. I mean, I wanted to eat, right? One bad move and he’d burn the whole thing on purpose, we’d have to start over _and_ deal with Mum shouting about wasted food. It wasn’t worth it.” He nudges Adam aside, very gently, and shakes oregano into the pan with the ground beef and tomatoes. “Dinner was peacetime. Always.”

Adam moves away. “I’m really not ready for you to touch me yet.”

“That’s fair.” Brendan backs up. “Chilli paste?”

Sebastian can only watch, fascinated. This family is like watching a soap opera.

“Don’t knock soap operas,” Brendan chides. “I love _Coronation Street_.”

 _Goddamn it_.

“He took something earlier,” Adam advises his brother. “He won’t have an inner monologue again until it finishes wearing off.”

Sebastian glares as Brendan eyeballs him. “No, I get that,” Brendan finally says, with a judicious smile and firm nod. “I’m like that when I drink. As you know! So, you know, not a big deal. I mean, I don’t want to know about my kid brother’s sex life, so we can keep the conversation away from that -”

Adam splashes red wine into the pan of tomatoes with what looks to Sebastian to be a little more force than necessary. Ruby droplets spatter the top of Moira’s immaculate white enamel stovetop. “You’re a pig, Brendan.”

“Yes.” Brendan’s wide grin is almost infectious - Sebastian can see Adam is having a hard time fighting against grinning back in response. “But are you telling me you’d want to hear about _my_ sex life?”

Sebastian sits back with his glass of wine raised to hide the fact that he’s nearly swallowed his tongue trying not to laugh. They’re just such _brothers_. No matter what happened between them, the essential bond is still there under everything. He’d swear he could see it, but that’s probably the mixed alcohol and drugs talking.

It’s there, though, through all the dinner prep, through refilling wine glasses, through taking turns stirring the sauce, through throwing together a salad after rummaging through the refrigerator together. The conversation is snipey and sharp, affectionate on Brendan’s side, cautious on Adam’s. There haven’t been any apologies yet, but they’re communicating.

When Sebastian sees Adam poke his brother in the side with the butt end of a wooden spoon, he knows that Adam is ready to talk, really talk at last.

Brendan sets out the plates and scoops pasta out. Adam comes by with the saucepan, ladling out great dollops of a rich, hearty tomato sauce. The salad bowl is set out, a block of cheese and a grater found, and once the wine glasses are topped up, there’s nothing more holding them back from the conversation they’ve been putting off.

Except that no one seems to want to start it.

Sebastian waits. It’s not his conversation to have, and he’s blurted out quite enough in the way of awkward shit today. He can feel the generally irrepressible urge to fill the air with small talk bubbling up, and solves that problem the only way he knows how: one swallow of wine, followed by a mouthful of pasta.

Whoa. Good pasta.

“Thanks,” Brendan and Adam say in stereo and, well, so much for that brilliant tactic.

He is definitely going to ask his doctor for a different medication.

Fortunately, this most irksome of side effects is for once helpful, breaking the silence and kickstarting the Crawford brothers into action. Brendan inhales. “Adam -”

“Bren,” Adam begins at the same time, only to shake his head and let out a breathless laugh wired electric with nerves. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

“I know the polite thing to do would be to say, ‘no, you’,” Brendan begins, “But all things considered, I expect my part in this is going to take longer, so I think I better go first.”

Sebastian holds his breath and watches as Adam considers this, breathing in and out slowly for an eternity before finally nodding and saying, “Okay. Sure.”

“I...am sorry.” Brendan’s fork catches the light and bounces away again as he twirls his spaghetti, noodles and sauce spinning in a slow, endless circle, mounding up around the tines. He shakes it all loose and starts over again. “To both of you. I mean, let’s start with today, right? It was a shit thing. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt, Sebastian, but it was a shit thing just to start with, and I’m sorry.”

“You really, really don’t always know when you push a joke too far, or play it on the wrong person.” Adam’s voice is as brittle as cracked glass. He doesn’t twirl his pasta, doesn’t even try to eat it. He’s stabbing at his salad instead, impaling the same lettuce leaf over and over until Sebastian can see the floral pattern of the plate through the sad, limp green of it. Being ready to talk clearly doesn't automatically mean being happy about it. “You’ve always been so extreme with the shit things, but your apologies just don’t go quite as far...well. I suppose you’d have to have a reliable track record of _making_ apologies in the first place for me to have a decent point of reference.”

Tilting his head up, Brendan nods. “I deserve that. You’re right. I go too far. I don’t think. And, absolutely I have not apologized enough to you. Not for anything.”

“Not at all.” Adam harpoons a slice of tomato. “By which I mean that you haven’t apologized to me for anything. At all.”

Sebastian watches the two of them, careful to say nothing, making his best effort to not even think anything. Frankly, there is a small, selfish part of him that wishes the rest of the family _had_ waited for him before leaving for dinner. He wouldn’t have minded getting his apology later. This is, after all the wary camaraderie before dinner, uncomfortable in the extreme.

But Adam needs him. This is exactly why Sebastian was left behind. And there is a larger part of him that is glad for that, glad that he can press his knee against Adam’s under the table, glad that he can drop his fork and reach over to put his hand on Adam’s and still the terrible, spastic salad murder.

He is glad that they can face this as partners, that he can be here for Adam.

Brendan’s eyes are on them, the violet of his bruise darker in the dimmer light of the kitchen. His mouth turns up in a smile as he watches them. “My brother’s lucky to have you, Sebastian. Really fucking lucky. I am sorry to have disrespected you, and to have gotten you hurt. As I said, it was a shit thing. It was actually quite a stupid thing to have done.”

“In the grand scheme of things, I got off light, and that I got hurt was really more my fault than anything else.” All Sebastian can do is shrug. Forgiveness in this instance, for himself, well, it’s easy. What else is there to say? “I would really prefer that you never do anything like that to me again, but apology accepted.”

“No. I will never do anything like that to you - or anyone else - again.” Relief shines in Brendan’s eyes, but his expression fades quickly into anxious apprehension as he shifts his gaze to Adam.

Adam’s knee against Sebastian’s is jumping, jumping, jumping, his arms crossing tight across his chest and his face so closed off, all in contrast to his loose and easy demeanor in the tub when he’d decided to consider forgiveness. “Okay. You have demonstrated that you are capable of apologies. Great. Doesn’t fix anything.”

“I know that, Adam. I know it. I…” Brendan’s fork falls to his plate with a clatter that makes them all jump. His fingers flex as if they could pluck the words he wants out of the air. “More than anything else in the world, I do wish apologies could fix what I’ve done, because I _am_ sorry for everything. Sorry and then some. I would love to be able to undo the really awful way I treated you. I’ve wanted that for a good ten years.”

“You never called.” His knee jumps harder, and Sebastian moves his hand under the table to cover it, willing relaxation, calm, peace with soft strokes. “You never called, never emailed -”

“Because I couldn’t fix it, Adam.” It’s a plea and an apology and a desperate hope. “I didn’t know what to say. I always knew an apology would never be enough. I felt like I couldn’t talk to you at all if I couldn’t figure out a way to make it up to you. It’s not an excuse. It’s just...it’s just what happened. Even right now, I feel like a fucking arse because I can apologize to you forever and mean it but I can’t go back and make it all not have ever happened.” His gaze finally drops away from Adam’s, unable to hold it any longer. “And that’s what you deserve, more than anything else. But I can’t give it to you. And I’m sorry for that as well.”

Adam's face falls into confusion, caution, sadness, and Sebastian's heart just breaks in half to see it. "But...why? Why did you ever do any of it in the first place?"

"If I knew that, I'd be a child psychologist instead of a veterinarian, Adam." Brendan answers the confusion with a helpless regret and sadness of his own. "The best answer I can give you is that I was a more than usually stupid kid. I can't undo that, and I hate that I can't."

It’s as clear as anything that Brendan means it, is sincere. And Adam is an open book, easily read as _wanting_ to believe it, wanting to accept it, and being too wary to do so. Sebastian can only watch, hating how helpless he feels to do anything but sit next to Adam and hope his support is felt.

A step in the kitchen doorway alerts them that someone’s coming, but they still jump when David’s voice issues calm and soft from behind Brendan. "You could tell him what you did in sixth form. That might help." He smiles at them in apology as they all stare, wide-eyed. "Sorry. We're back, they sent me ahead to scout the mood and bring you into the front room. Or we can come in here, if you're not finished with dinner."

The room is electrified, the air itself completely changed and charged in an instant; Sebastian can _see_ Adam seizing on the first part of David's statement even as Brendan seems to be shrinking into his chair. His eyes ping pong from David to Brendan, and Sebastian feels his jumping knee jolt to a stop under the table. "Back up. What's that about sixth form?"

Brendan somehow manages to grow even smaller - an impressive feat given how broad he is across the shoulders - and shakes his head. He winces and brings a careful hand to his sore cheek. "Nothing important, Adam. I mean, it wasn't a big deal."

Sebastian glances at David, still standing in the kitchen doorway, and raises his eyebrows in inquiry. Whatever David means by the oblique information he just dropped, it's having the net effect of a bomb strike on Adam and Brendan. The smile on his face belies the seismic tremor of its impact. "You might as well confess it, Brendan," he says, loose and relaxed as he leans on the door frame. "It'll only be good for this mess. Tim and Chloe and I talked it over at dinner, we're all agreed."

"Well, it's not your information to agree upon distributing, is it?" Brendan growls, head still down and eyes cut to the side in a glare. "It's mine and I'm not interested -"

"It kind of is mine, as you well know, and Tim's," David interrupts and Sebastian just stares, knowing Adam is just as confused as he is and easily three times as frustrated, as his knee has started up with the jiggling again. Lifting a hand, David waves towards the family room. "God knows it's definitely Adam's information to receive. If we adjourn to the family room - I think you're all as done as you're going to get with those plates - then Tim and I will explain, if Bren won't."

"It's nothing," Brendan protests again.

Adam holds up a hand to stop both of them in their tracks. Only Sebastian is close enough to see how it’s still unsteady, his fingers trembling a nearly microscopic amount with the energy he’s working to suppress. “If it’s not important, and it concerns me, and - I think this is the important part - if it could do anything to help you and I mend this damn fence, then why can’t you tell me?”

But Brendan sits in stony silence, picking up his fork again to spin another clump of spaghetti onto the tines, his face a study in stubborn withholding even as he stuffs the bite of noodles into his mouth.

"Well, I think it will actually go a long way towards repairing some of what you want to fix." David turns and heads off into the family room. "We'll all be in here if your curiosity gets the better of you, Adam. Chloe's there too, Brendan - apparently she's not calling off the wedding after all."

Adam is on his feet and out the kitchen door before David even finishes his sentence, leaving Sebastian to stare at the bizarre sight of Brendan trying his level best to sink through the floor. It’s not a sight he’ll easily forget. "What the hell was all that about?"

Brendan squirms in his chair, not looking at Sebastian as he puffs his cheeks out. "It's stupid, it's nothing, I never wanted Adam to know about it in the first place. It won't change anything."

“David seems to think it might.” The pasta is cold now, but Sebastian forks up another mouthful. The energy in the room is making him think he’ll need the fortitude of at least a reasonably full stomach.

“Yeah, well, David meddles…” Brendan’s fork clatters to his plate. “Fuck it. Can I give you a hand out into the family room? This story is getting completely blown one way or another, and damn it all, I should be the one to do it.”

“I think that was the point,” Sebastian says, a split second before he’s hauled up to his feet and out of the kitchen at a very fast limp. “Hey!”

“Sorry. I’m in a hurry.” They cross the hallway and stop in the door of the family room. Brendan bangs on the door frame with a fist and launches right in. “Fine. Start of sixth form, Tim and I beat the shit out of anyone having a go at Adam and David. They’d just started going out, I wanted to make sure to establish that they weren’t to be touched. It was me and Tim and a couple of the guys from the rugby side...and their little brothers.”

The family room, full of Crawfords, David, and Chloe, lapses into a silence so profound that the crickets out in the front garden can actually be heard. David, the only one standing, had actually gotten cut off mid-sentence, one hand drooping in the air as he looks back over his shoulder.

Everyone else is blinking, the twins staring at each other open-mouthed on the sofa. Moira and Stephen look like they can’t even breathe, they’re so startled. Tim is smirking, Chloe is cradling her face in her hands, and in the window seat, Adam -

\- Adam is shocked in a way Sebastian has never seen, chalk-white so that his widened eyes stand out in his face as bright and round as blue marbles. His mouth works, opening and closing without sound. In front of him, his hands are held as if he’d been preparing to catch a basketball or something, open with the fingers splayed and flexing mindlessly.

In that moment, Sebastian is genuinely concerned that his fiancé has experienced one too many shocks in a very eventful day, and he’s either going to snap, or have an aneurysm, or hell, he could go for broke and do both. Sebastian vows to never again do anything even remotely surprising. No one is allowed to surprise Adam again, ever. He’ll write it into his wedding vows.

“You...formed a brute squad?” When Adam finally gets any words out, they’re not a whole lot of steps up from a froglike croak. “I had...the rugby mafia? As bodyguards?”

At his left, Tim wiggles a hand. “Eh, more or less? I mean, if you want to put it that way. I like to think of it as more like - what’s that thing you’ve got in the States, Seb? The security for the President.”

“Secret Service,” Sebastian whispers, his head throbbing as much as his ankle at this point. “Brendan - my foot -”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” He deposits Sebastian gently down onto the piano bench and paces out to the middle of the room to stand next to David, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. “So there you go, Adam. That’s all it was.”

“But..that...I…” Words appear to still be eluding Adam at a very fundamental level. “You could have told me about that! I would have...oh my god. Did you like...did you…” He clears his throat, and his face contorts hilariously, flushing red so fast he looks like nothing so much as a tomato. “...watch?”

“No! No, oh my god, no, jesus, we were strictly into enforcement, discipline, cracking skulls and the like, god.” If Brendan were to shake his head any more violently, it might fly off. “I told you, I have never, not _ever_ , wanted to know about your sex life.”

Despite the seeming impossibility of it, Adam’s face goes even more white. “Not that I had one at that age.”

Moira looks up, eyebrow raised. “We all knew about the drainpipe, darling.”

That shuts the room up again in a hurry. No one is able to look at anyone else.

It’s Stephen that breaks the silence, hauling himself up to his feet so he can amble over to the liquor cabinet. “Right, I absolutely need a drink now. Anyone else?”

“No thanks.” It has been the effort of a millennium to not blurt out anything stupid for the last several minutes, Sebastian is not about to break that track record now.

“Yes, please,” Rhiannon chimes in with a sweet smile.

“Anyone over the age of eighteen?” Stephen amends. No one answers.

Adam ignores his father, focusing again on his brother. “Bren, seriously, you could have told me. I mean. Seriously. _Seriously._ ” His hands flail. “Seriously,” he repeats like a broken record.

“Where’s that bottle of scotch I got you for your birthday, Mo?” Bottles rattle as Stephen rummages in the cabinet. “The nice one, wouldn’t you like a nip of that?”

“Dad!” The outburst comes from not one, not even two, but all five of the Crawford children. Impressive. They hadn’t even been a single beat off. And it works, too - Stephen quietly produces a bottle of cognac and two small glasses and returns to Moira’s side without another word.

Adam looks at Brendan. “Bren. Come on.”

“You already thought I was a thug.” His shoulders move in a shrug that Sebastian can see is a transparent effort towards nonchalance. “You sure wouldn’t have appreciated it if you thought I was following you and hovering over you, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have approved of our methods...I wanted to look out for you. You didn’t trust me - fucking good reasons you had for it, too. So I just did what was needed to keep you safe before I got the fuck out of your life.”

“I don’t understand…”

“You were so _little_ back then when you came out...just this skinny kid…” The very atmosphere in the room is holding its breath while Brendan pushes every word out. “I’m in gym every day with a bunch of fucking wankers snapping towels at each others’ arses talking shite about my brother - _my little brother -_ and...fuck, Adam, you’d got enough shit from me all your life. I didn’t know how to apologize for it but goddamn if I was going to let anyone else make your life hell.”

Fuck it. The confusion on Adam’s face is too much for Sebastian to take. His ankle is on fire, but he shoves himself up and hops across the room, nudging Tim up so he can sit next to Adam in the window seat and hold him while he gapes up at Brendan. “Fuck, Brendan. Fuck.” He seems to run out of words then, leaning back against Sebastian and just staring, open mouthed and at a loss.

“Is that why you moved home?”

Everyone’s heads swivel to look at Rebecca, cheeks flushed and fidgeting with her fingers. She looks as surprised to have asked the question as they were to have heard it, but she takes a deep breath and carries on. “Did you move home from Glasgow because I came out? Because of me and Hayley?”

Sebastian is trying to figure out how he would describe Brendan’s face in this moment. It is somewhere between _chewed on salted lemon slices_ and _so that’s why you don’t stick forks in the plug socket_. It would be hilarious any other time, any other time when secrets weren’t spilling out like waterfalls.

And because Brendan can’t seem to recover his equilibrium, Tim steps up to fill the void. “It wasn’t entirely why he came home,” he says, running a hand through his hair until it all stands up like golden straw. “But it was why I did.”

“Timothy,” Moira breathes, cognac glass arrested halfway to her mouth.

“Someone needed to be at the school to keep an eye on things,” Tim explains, turning to face his parents. “Bren was hearing stuff from some of the kids who brought in their pets, you know, the ones with older brothers and sisters in class with the twins. An opening happened to come up at Crown Gate, I applied, and I moved home so I could be around if Becca needed someone looking out.”

Stephen clears his throat. “I think you should have told me about this, Tim. You shouldn’t have had to upend your life. The governors and I should have been able to come up with something.”

“We take care of each other,” is all Tim says in response, tipping his chin up and setting his jaw. “It’s fine, Dad. I wanted to do it.”

But Rebecca’s face, dark with distress, says otherwise. “It’s not fine, Tim. What about your students in Cardiff? Your flat and things? What about Carys?”

In Sebastian’s arms, Adam jumps and shakes his head. “That’s it. That’s what I couldn’t remember Monday. Carys.”

Tim rubs his hand down his face. “Yeah? What about Carys, Adam?”

“You were engaged! The twins said you were supposed to marry her.” Adam’s hand laying over Sebastian’s arm squeezes tight. “My god, Tim. No wonder you’re so brooding and working all the time, you gave her up to come back here.”

“Better to say she gave up on me.” Tim’s mouth twists, not quite a smile, very wry. “She didn’t understand why I would put my family first. She certainly wasn’t interested in moving here with me. Said she’d fought too hard to get out of one small town to move to an even smaller one.”

 

In an instant, Moira is on her feet, handing her glass to Stephen so she can reach up and cup her middle son’s face in her hands. She’s joined in short order by both twins ambushing Tim in a hug. When Moira looks up at Tim her eyes are bright with tears. “Oh, Tim. Darling boy.”

His arms come around Rebecca and Rhiannon, hugging them close. “I loved her - still love her - but it just wasn’t…” Air puffs his cheeks out for a minute as he pulls himself together. “I told her it would just be until the twins were off to Uni, but she wasn’t having it. So she gave me the ring back, and tomorrow isn’t my wedding anniversary.” He looks down at Rebecca and tugs with affection at a lock of her hair. “Becca. Please don’t worry. I don’t regret it at all. I love you, it was important that you were safe, just like we kept Adam safe.”

 _Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t fucking cry...oh, fuck it._ Sebastian extracts his hand from Adam’s grip, the better to wipe at his eyes before anyone sees how shiny they just got. This family, this fucking family, damn it all, they’re wacky and eccentric and slightly terrifying so much of the time, but god, they’re so loyal and they care _so much_. It’s nothing he’s ever experienced at these levels, and he’s drowning in it, amazed by it, head over heels for all of it.

Fuck, he’s glad he’s marrying into this, into all of this.

He feels Adam go rigid in his arms and sees Tim’s head lift with curiosity writ large on his face. “Are you?” Tim asks, squinting and craning his neck to look over his mother’s head at Sebastian’s left hand. “Oh, hey, look at that. I guess you are.”

Sebastian is calling Dr. Marin _tomorrow_ , phone bill be damned.

“ _Oh my god._ ” Chloe’s first words since he and Brendan had arrived in the front room explode out in an earsplitting shriek of astounding decibel value. She bolts out of her curled up perch in the big chair like she was shot out of a cannon and grabs Sebastian’s hand. “Oh my god! It’s not Sunday! I don’t care! Oh my god!”

There’s what sounds like a curse in something Sebastian can only assume is Gaelic as Moira pushes away from Tim and trips over poor Newton in her haste to get to the window seat and snatch Sebastian’s hand out of Chloe’s. “Adam?” she breathes, eyes huge and starry and fixed on her youngest son. “Is it...are you…have you…”

“Well. This is awkward.” Reaching out, Adam gently pulls Sebastian’s hand away from his mother. “One, my fiancé is not a party favor, please stop trying to pass bits of him around. Two, yes. It is. I am. I have. What was the question? If it was, _have_ _I asked Sebastian to marry me_ , the answer is, sort of.”

Chloe scoffs. “What, he’s just trying the ring on for size?”

“No,” Adam replies. “It’s just that he asked me first, so I gave him the ring.”

At such close range, Chloe’s next shriek threatens to render them both deaf, and Moira too for good measure. “I need to know everything,” Sebastian hears her demand as his ears ring like a cathedral. “Tell me all of it, how did it happen, was it while we were gone? It had to be, didn’t it, I’d have noticed that ring while we were getting Sebastian out of the woods.” She reaches out to shake Adam’s arm. “Come on, tell!”

Adam’s mouth twitches, and Sebastian can feel him shaking with suppressed laughter. “Well,” he begins, “we were in the bathtub, naked -”

“I’m going to ask you to stop right there,” Brendan interjects, dropping his head into his hand. Tim and David and Stephen’s faces silently make similar pleas.

“Party pooper,” Chloe tosses over her shoulder with a pout. She leans over towards Adam. “You will call me and tell me later.”

He answers only with a smile and a quick kiss to her cheek before he’s pushing out of Sebastian’s arms and up to standing. Every person in the room takes in a huge breath and holds it as Adam paces over to Brendan, his shoulders taut, his back stiff. “Bren.”

Brendan holds himself straight up even as he looks like he’s bracing himself to get hit again. “Yeah?”

Adam’s lips are pressed tight, and the room falls silent until all they hear is the harsh breaths he’s moving through his nose. In, out, in, out, Adam breathes and his fists curl up and Sebastian begins to worry there’s going to be a second coming of Punchmageddon after all.

“I am still angry,” Adam says at last, his gaze so intense it might drill holes through his brother’s head. “I am angry, and so much still hurts, I mean, one apology is never going to fix it all…”

“I know,” Brendan begins, but he flinches back as Adam lifts a hand, and whatever else he’s going to say sputters off into the air.

Adam keeps his hand up for a second longer, then drops it to his side. The smile that comes to his face isn’t large, and it’s still sad around the edges, but it is unmistakably a smile and everyone lets their breath out in a rush. “I accept it.”

Brendan looks as if he’d been hit after all. “Sorry?”

“Right. You’re sorry, and I accept that. Your apology.” Adam nods. “A very wise fellow that I hope to marry as soon as possible reminded me that...life is too short. Anger is...too much is poisonous.” When he looks over his shoulder back at Sebastian, his eyes are soft with affection. He lets his smile get just a little bigger before he turns back to Brendan. “I am looking at something amazing and new in my life, this thing that is just...” His hand rises and falls. “It’s big, Bren. Getting engaged to Sebastian is a whole new beginning to a different part of my life. I get now why you wanted to apologize this week. I understand it. You wanted all the big, shiny new beginnings you could get.”

SIlence as Brendan’s face works, his mouth open to let out the smallest of chuckles as he dips his head. His eyes come up to meet Adam’s. “Yeah. Essentially. I mean, I meant it, but yeah, kind of.”

“So…” Adam shifts on his feet, moving his shoulders a little back, a little forth. “I think I want to rack up a few shiny new beginnings myself. I am that selfish.” Quick as a flash, he shoves his hand out in front of himself. “You and me, can we start over, Bren? You think it’s not too late?”

The laugh Brendan lets out is the shortest burst of air, clogged with the tears that are already sheening his eyes. “Nah. I think maybe it’s just in the nick of time.”

And Brendan grabs Adam’s outstretched hand, pulling him close into the first hug they maybe have ever had, as far as Sebastian knows. They’re laughing, they’re just short of crying, they’re pounding each other on the back.

As far as new beginnings go, Sebastian thinks he’s never seen a better, brighter one. He's glad Adam didn't go down the drainpipe and escape this after all. It's amazing to see.

He’s really looking forward to blowing it out of the water.

 


	12. Epilogue: Life With You

"Babe," Sebastian calls gently through the bathroom door. "We have a wedding to get to."

"I'll be out in a minute," Adam calls back, and Sebastian takes that minute to check himself in the closet door mirror. Hair - good. Tuxedo - very good, very sharp, well tailored, tie straight. Shoes - nice and shiny. Yep. He's good.

Not as good as the sight of Adam when he swings the bathroom door open, though. "Whoa."

"You like?" Adam brushes his hands down the front of his Cunningham tartan kilt, fingers dancing back up over the sporran, the short dress jacket with its silver buttons, the red tie at his throat. "I mean, it's not ridiculous?"

Sebastian's mouth goes dry. "Never. I could just drag you back to bed right now."

"Well. As per tradition..." Adam winks and lifts the hem of his kilt just high and long enough for Sebastian to see he's not wearing anything underneath it before dropping it with a sigh. "I really would let you in a heartbeat. But we're already running late."

"We are." Sebastian reaches out to adjust Adam's collar points, to brush a lock of hair out of his eyes. "Okay. So."

"So." Cocking his head, Adam lets a lopsided smile curve his mouth. "Are you ready to get married?"

"Not really," Sebastian confesses, grinning as Adam looks startled. "I'm more used to working at weddings than being the subject of them. But I'm ready to spend the rest of my life with you, how's that?"

Adam grins back and loops his arm through Sebastian's. "Works for me. Now, let's go put everyone else out of their misery."

***

_The only one ever truly in misery was Kurt, who of course was their beleaguered and exhausted chief wedding planner._

“ _I need you to pick a venue, dammit,” are his first words to them when they disembark at Kennedy. “Pick a date, pick a venue.”_

 _Sebastian stares. “We’ve been engaged for_ less than a week _. Adam’s ring won’t even arrive from London for another two - at least.”_

“ _I can’t wait for that, I love my new ring.” Adam leans over and, ignoring the questionable quality breath caused by drinking far too much celebratory champagne on the airplane, kisses Sebastian on the lips, a kiss that deepens considerably and quickly given that they are still fairly tipsy. He giggles against Sebastian’s mouth. “My god, darling, have we stopped drinking since Thursday?”_

“ _Drinking with your mother for breakfast on Friday, with Chloe that afternoon finishing the cake, at dinner while you and your brothers had your little stag thing, before the wedding, at the reception, at the jeweler’s, at dinner after we saw Brendan and Chloe off, on the plane...no, I don’t think -”_

“ _A little focus, please, you high-flying drunks.” Kurt reaches out to shake them apart. “Do you know how far ahead New York City’s wedding and reception venues are booked up? If you want to get married any time in the next ten years -”_

_He breaks off when Adam and Sebastian exchange significant glances and grins. “We want to get married on the rooftop at Sweets,” Adam announces with a nod. “Theodora loves the idea, and says she can have it ready and fit for a wedding by next July, that suits us fine.”_

“ _Sabrina talked to the owner of The Trap and said we can totally have the reception there,” Sebastian adds, his grin beaming out some serious high voltage delight. “That’s where we met, so there’s nowhere better.”_

_And Kurt is stunned completely stupid for the first time since either of them have known him, standing with his mouth open and hands flailing. Blaine is grinning back at them, though. “That sounds perfect to me, completely amazing and absolutely exactly what both of you would do.” His hug nearly squeezes them both breathless. “Perfect.”_

“ _Is Kurt going to be all right, though?” Adam asks with concern, hitching his carry-on up on his shoulder and taking Kurt’s hand to lead him to the baggage carousel. Kurt’s eyes and mouth are still as hilariously wide and round as saucers. “I don’t think he expected us to have thought ahead, he thought he was going to shock us.”_

“ _More fool him. We’re basically all in the wedding business one way or the other except for Blaine, how could you even think we wouldn’t be planning logistics already?” Sebastian reaches over and slaps Kurt hard on the ass, jolting him out of his shock with an angry squeal. “Don’t worry, Hummel. We’ll let you handle everything else.”_

***

  
Except for the vows. Those, they wrote on their own.

“I promise pancakes every Sunday morning, to hold your hand in mine whenever you need it, to stand by your side and support you through the easy times and the rough ones,” Adam says now, gripping Sebastian’s hand like a lifeline. “Sebastian Michael Smythe, I will love you with every beat of my heart until it stops.”

They had, of course, kept their vows secret from each other, not even reading over them in rehearsal. It chokes Adam up to speak them aloud for the first time. It completely freezes up Sebastian’s thoughts and any words he was about to speak. He swallows, and swallows, eyes bright with tears. His hand lifts to his face as he sniffles.

Adam leans forward with a swallow of his own, and whispers so that only Sebastian hears him say, “And I absolutely vow to never hang any posters of handsome staring men over our bed at any point, ever.”

Sebastian’s laughter peals out into the New York summer sky.

***

“ _What do you mean, no?” Sebastian asks with incredulity, staring at Connor like he’s just spontaneously turned into a Care Bear. “You can’t say no! You’re my best friend! You’re practically my brother! You have to be my best man!”_

_Connor picks up Kira and passes her across their table at Finch to shove her into Sebastian’s arms. “I can too say no, ass...butthead.”_

“ _Ass Butt Head,” Kira chants in delight as her father’s face collapses into a frown of chagrin and consternation. “Ass Butt Head.”_

_Sebastian hides his face in her soft cloud of dark brown curls until he can stop smiling and resume the serious expression the conversation is calling for. “Connor, come on. Why not?”_

“ _Because I can’t be your head photographer and your best man at the same time,” Connor informs him while handing Kira a bagel, “and I don’t trust anyone else to shoot the most important day of your life but you, and you’re going to be kind of busy for that. So ask Blaine to be your best man, I got shit to do.”_

“ _Shit!” Kira shrieks with glee, bouncing and throwing bagel crumbs like confetti until she nearly falls off of Sebastian’s lap._

And so it was settled, unless Rayna killed her husband for continuing to inadvertently teach their toddler profanity first.

***

Sebastian glances over to where Connor is standing still and quiet with his camera behind Kurt and Rebecca - Adam’s wedding party - and grins. The grin is not returned. Connor waves his free hand in a motion that clearly is intended to get Sebastian moving on reciting his own vows so Connor can catch the moment.

He’s still reeling from the sweetness and hilarity of Adam’s words, but Sebastian takes a deep breath and gives it his best shot.

“Adam Elliott Crawford,” he begins, squeezing down tighter on Adam’s hands in his. His chest is tight, so tight, all of his emotions are expanding against his ribs like they could burst out and his heart is going to lead the charge. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t thank whoever’s up there listening for sending you into my life. You changed everything I thought I knew about love.” There so much love in his chest, he can’t get a good breath, and his voice is shaking with it. “I promise to spend every day showing you how much I love you, how grateful I am that you exist. I promise to always drink tea with you in the morning. I promise to stand by you through everything that comes at us. I promise to never, ever spring too many surprises on you in a day.”

Their hands are shaking in each others’ grips.

“I promise,” Sebastian says, his knees feeling like they could give out any time, “that all the love I have in my heart is yours, and only yours, forever.” 

***

“ _That’s got to go,” Kurt says in alarm as Rhiannon takes her dark hair down out of its sloppy bun to reveal that she has streaked it through with a full rainbow spectrum of color. “Oh, my god. No. No, no, no, the bridesmaids are supposed to be identical. I was promised identical maids of honor.”_

“ _You were promised identical_ twins _as maids of honor.” She tosses her scrunchie over to Rebecca, who uses it to put her own blameless and enhancement-free dark waves up into a much tidier high ponytail. “We don’t do full time identical.”_

_Sebastian and Adam watch in interest as Kurt displays all the signs of a man who is preparing to have a stroke. Color drains out of his cheeks, leaving his eyes to glow an even more hectic seafoam against the sudden pallor. His hands shake, his knees give out, and he lands with a thud on one of his kitchen chairs, measuring tape dangling from his fingers. “This is terrible.”_

_Rhiannon runs her hand through her hair. “I thought it was pretty. I like it.”_

“ _It’s got to go.” Kurt seems galvanized into action all at once, thrusting his hand into his pocket to fish out his cell phone, fingers flying. “I think I can get an emergency appointment at Rinaldo. If not, well, I’ll hold you down and color it myself, I’ve done it before, it’s not difficult and I’m bigger than you.”_

 _Adam raises his hand. “Hang on, now, I can’t allow you to abuse my sister. I like her hair. It_ is _pretty. Don’t you like it, Sebastian?”_

“ _It looks great to me, and she’s_ my _maid of honor,” Sebastian agrees. “I say leave it.”_

_Kurt is two steps from going apoplectic. “You said I was in charge of all the rest of the details. This is a detail.”_

“ _My mother will kill you if you touch so much as a hair on my sister’s head,” Rebecca chimes in, all sweetness and light except for her narrowed eyes. “Good money was paid for that.”_

_Kurt is well into cursing a blue streak before Rhiannon collapses into giggles and reaches into her hair to tug out a blue streak of her own. Extensions, clipped in and easily removed. “I’d really like to wear them, though. Seriously, we don’t do the identical thing. And Sebastian said it was fine.”_

“ _I actually sort of expected it of her,” Sebastian says, snuggling further down into Kurt’s sofa with Adam. “I like it, Kurt. Seriously. The dresses are lilac, it’s not like it’ll really clash with them, and who cares if it does anyway.”_

“ _I care,” Kurt sputters, but no one else does, and when both Moira and Anne sweep in to back Rhiannon up on it, the issue is closed._  

***

Apart from the rainbow streaks - echoed with actual dyed-in golden strands in Rebecca’s updo - the twins really are identical, and they look gorgeous in their matching dusty lilac chiffon dresses. Kurt had torn apart every bridal boutique in town to find the pair of them, ending up one size too large for the twins. He’d handled all of the alterations himself up to the last minute, which explained the matching dusty lilac circles under his eyes.

Adam is amazingly grateful to him for having pulled all of this off. He knows he and Sebastian have driven their friend and both their mothers absolutely bananas with their inability to really get into the wedding planning, but they hadn’t been able to help it. He and Sebastian just wanted to be married; everything else was trappings for their family and friends.

So everyone was getting what they wanted. Right? He sure was.

“Please present the rings.” The officiant is none other than Will’s boyfriend James, happy to volunteer his services for his partner’s employer.

Kurt kneels to retrieve the two rings from the ribbon tied around Roger’s furry white neck. Roger had been amazingly patient as Kira clung to his shoulder and toddled down the aisle, tiny Fitz riding imperiously in the little basket her mother helped her carry.

Adam is glad that Connor had set up a video camera array as well, because the sighs and squeals that went up at the sight of Kira and the two dogs had been _epic_.

James clears his throat as Kurt puts the gold band into Adam’s hand, and passes the burnished titanium one to Sebastian. “Adam, please put the ring on Sebastian’s finger, and recite your ring vows.”

Their hands haven’t stopped shaking for the length of the ceremony. “Sebastian, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love and how much I will cherish you and every minute of time we’ll have together in the rest of our lives.” He slides the ring over Sebastian’s finger back where it belongs, where it will belong forever.

“Adam,” Sebastian responds, holding tight with one hand as he pushes the titanium circle over Adam’s knuckle, “I give you this ring as a symbol of my love and how much I will cherish you and every minute of time we’ll have together in the rest of our lives.”

Sniffles and weeping can be heard all over the rooftop - even Rhiannon, Adam sees, is wiping tears away from her cheeks - as James smiles and closes his little ceremony book. “Then by the power vested in me by the state of New York, I now pronounce you husbands and life partners. You may seal your union with a kiss.”

Amid clapping, cheering, and tears, they chuckle into each others’ mouths and make it all so, so official.

They are so, so married.

***

“ _I’d like to invite Greg and his husband,” Sebastian says, flipping an ivory card over and over in his hands. His fingers trace over Blaine’s tidy black calligraphy before he tucks the card into a matching envelope and pastes a stamp into the corner._

_Adam pauses, a stamp of his own hanging in the air. “Seriously?”_

_Plucking up one of the address labels from the free sheet sent to them by some charitable organization they’d donated to, Sebastian shrugs and tries to seem casual as he sticks it into place on the envelope’s other corner. “He won’t accept it, don’t worry.”_

“ _Then why?”_

 _The envelope sails across the table to join the pile of other neatly stamped and labeled envelopes waiting to be addressed. Sebastian thinks about the question, about a day almost two years ago now, about a dare. “It’s just a message. He’ll understand.”_  

***

“ _Thanks for not punching me in the nose, I knew I was right_.” Stephen frowns at the inscription in the otherwise congratulatory card, one of dozens opened and displayed on a table in The Trap. “What sort of congratulations is that?”

“It almost sounds like something I would have sent.” Brendan peers over his father’s shoulder, plucking the card away. “I didn’t, though. Wonder who Greg and Kevin are?”

Chloe snatches the card away from her husband and reads it with interest. “I don’t know, but I don’t think they’re here. I’ve met Sabrina, and then Will and his partners Ginny and James - they’re all three so cute together - then Sarita, Connor and Rayna and Kira, Kurt and Blaine, Elliott and his cousin, Stella, and then Vanessa, and Natasha and her daughter Katerina, and Theodora, and of course Sebastian’s parents and grandparents…” She ticks them all off on her fingers and closes one eye in thought. “There’s no Greg or Kevin anywhere.”

Tim is squinting around the bar. "Yeah, that's...everyone. I don't remember a Greg or a Kevin, either."

“They declined on their RSVP.” Kurt sails by, champagne flute held high and an inordinately pleased smile on his face. “And that’s a good thing. They sent a hell of a gift though.”

Moira looks over from where she and David are poking through the haul of opened gifts that’s loaded onto the adjacent table. “Really?”

“Mm. Apart from their lack of presence, which is a gift in itself…” Kurt points to a long envelope with his glass. “They’re sending Adam and Sebastian to Jamaica for ten days starting next week. Cake, anyone?” 

***

_Will crosses his arms over his chest. “Adam. Get out. Theodora’s orders.”_

“ _T_ _his is half my bakery, too,” Adam protests, trying to push past Will and Natasha to get into the kitchen. He fails utterly, largely because Sarita and Vanessa are a formidable second line and between the four of them, he’s pushed back to Sweets’ door. “Hey!”_

“ _Y_ _ou know the drill, Adam.” Sarita’s liquid dark eyes are wide and sweet even as she leans around him to open the door and help shove him out onto the sidewalk. “You got to pick the flavors, but everything else is up to us. Out. You can’t see it, it’s a wedding present!”_

“ _It’s going to be gorgeous. Don’t you trust us?” Natasha had been shoved out onto the sidewalk with him, the better to lean against the door and defend it against his efforts to get back inside. “We know the colors. We know what you like. We know what Sebastian likes. Don’t worry.”_

_Adam wants badly to shove past her, but he knows for a fact that she’s been taking Krav Maga lessons for the last two years, and it seems like a bad idea to push his luck three days before his wedding. “Yeah, but...Tash, I just want to work. I need something to do.”_

_Her hands come up to nudge him gently back in the direction of his flat. “Why don’t you go make out with your husband to be?” she suggests. “Get some practice in for the wedding night?”_

_Looking up at the glass door of the bakery, behind the gold and white letters spelling out his name and Theodora’s as proprietors, he can see Will and Sarita and Vanessa making kissy faces. Adam sighs, knowing when he’s beaten. “Okay.”_  

***

“I can’t wait for tonight,” Sebastian says, twirling his fork so that it clinks and clatters against his cake plate. He’d taken a couple of bites of the strawberry-filled chocolate dream of a cake - one of the most amazing things he’s ever tasted - but it sits otherwise untouched on top of a paper doily, a lavender buttercream rose rising from the frosting. “When do we get to go be alone?”

Adam cocks his head to regard his husband, chewing and swallowing his own bite of cake before replying. “We’re just going back to our flat, darling. To do the same thing we do every night.” His mouth tips up in a positively wicked smile. “Not that I don’t absolutely love what we do every night, mind.”

“Yes, but I have never been alone with my _husband_ before.” Sebastian’s tone is arch, but his eyes are full of promises and no small amount of absolute undiluted delight. “I can’t wait to be alone with my _husband._ ”

“Mm. I love it. Say it again.” Lifting his fork, Adam offers a bite of cake from his own plate to his husband, who accepts with a smile. “Come on, love. Please?”

“What, husband?” Sebastian leans in. “ _Husband, husband, husband,_ ” he whispers, and the two of them collapse against each other in helpless laughter. “We are the biggest idiots in the world.”

“That’s as it may be.” Adam nuzzles in against Sebastian’s neck. “But we’re each others’ biggest idiots in the world. It’s legal now and everything.”

Sebastian’s mouth moves to nip at his ear. “What I’m gonna do to you tonight, _husband_ , isn’t legal, at least, not in the US…” He takes in a deep breath, the warm inhalation tickling Adam’s eat. “I’m gonna -”

“Time for our grooms to have their first dance!” shouts out the DJ they’d hired, some friend of Elliott’s with the most inopportune timing in the world. “Come on, you two, get your hands off of each other and get out on the dance floor.” He scans the room, face lighting up when his gaze falls on the two of them. “I’ve got your song right here, ready to go.” 

***

“ _You said I was in charge!” Kurt throws his hands into the air, forgetting himself for a moment and nearly sending his iPod flying. He glares glass daggers at Sebastian and Adam after he has it securely back in his hands. “But you’ve taken charge of the date, and the venue, and Rhiannon’s hair, and now this too!”_

 _Adam looks up from where he’d been besottedly staring at his and Sebastian’s intertwined fingers. Soon they’d have their rings back in their proper places. He can’t wait. “Well, Kurt, the song for our first dance_ is _a fairly important matter.”_

“ _Which is why I should be in charge of it, I’ll get it exactly right.” It’s not a sound argument, and his cheeks flush brilliant scarlet as the grooms-to-be level nearly identical stares of skepticism on him. “I would! I will!”_

 _If Sebastian could, he’d shift his raised eyebrow even higher. “I don’t really do musicals, Kurt,” he begins, covering his and Adam’s entwined hands with his free one. “But even if I did? I’m pretty sure a selection from_ Jesus Christ Superstar _wouldn’t exactly top the list. It doesn’t really scream_ appropriate _.”_

_Kurt sulks. “I only played that one so you’d compare it to the one I really want and like that one better.”_

“ _And that one would be?” Adam asks, leaning against Sebastian’s shoulder and waiting. He does not lose the skeptical expression._

 _Around the iPod, Kurt’s fingers twist and fidget and his knuckles turn white. His eyes drop away, never to meet Sebastian’s and Adam’s again. “_ As Long As You’re Mine _.”_

“ _No,” the grooms-to-be stated in firm, immovable agreement._

“ _I_ _t’s from_ Wicked _!”_

_Sebastian shook his head. “I know, and also, no.”_

“Don’t Dream It’s Over” _? Kurt offers, but feebly, with the attitude of a man who knows he has completely lost this argument. “Crowded House is classic, and it’s pretty and slow.”_

“ _We like the one we picked out,” Adam says, freeing his hand to grab his phone and toss it to Kurt. “It’s the first one on the_ Holy Fuck We’re Getting Married  _playlist.”_

_When the first notes of the guitar plunk out of the speakers, Kurt raises his own eyebrow. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”_

***

“I really do like this song a lot,” Sebastian says, grinning at Adam and delighting in how the grin is returned tenfold. Over the bar’s sound system, bass guitar begins to plunk out a cheery rhythm. “So glad your mother suggested it. It is actually perfect.”

“We can never tell her how much we like it,” Adam warns, grabbing Sebastian and swinging him into a shuffling little spin on the dance floor when Reid brothers begin to sing. “Not ever. We’d never hear the end of it.”

***

_"C'mon." Moira's grip on her son's wrist is as firm and secure as her footsteps are not as they wobble down the first floor hallway. Sebastian follows the sound of the alcohol sloshing in the bottle she's carrying as he limps drunkenly behind them in the dark. "Shhhh."_

_It's a nearly pointless warning, because if their constant tipsy banging into walls hadn't woken anyone up, Moira slamming the door of her home office open surely would at least bring Stephen running._

_Or not. Stephen had, in his joy, hit the cognac pretty hard after all the talking and hugging and everything. Only the twins were left sober at the end of the night, and they'd been so exhausted by the events and stress of the entire day, they were all but punch-drunk by the time they'd wandered up to bed. So they probably wouldn't come down either. Eh._

_Sebastian wavers into the office after Adam, falling into the closest chair with a thump and a sigh of dust from the abused seat cushion. "Siddown," Moira commands, a second too late. Adam has already slumped down into another nearby chair, eyes glazed over with much too much Scotch and whatever devil’s water his mother had served them in the wee hours while talking about sex toys and prostates and all sorts of things neither Adam nor Sebastian want to remember ever._

_But this, Moira had insisted, they'd want to remember. They needed to hear it._

_Moira fiddles her laptop to life and pulls something up on iTunes. “This song, this song is perfect for you boys,” she drawls out in a slur, falling over a little sideways into - or rather, sort of onto - her desk chair and swigs directly out of the bottle still in her hand as a bass guitar plunks into rhythmic, cheery life. "So perfect."_

_It's the Proclaimers, of course. Not the usual song. Not one Sebastian's heard before, actually. Adam's head lifts in bleary interest when the vocals start. "I think I remember this one._ [ Life With You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kerPRuJYWbk) _?"_

_"It's perfect," Moira mumbles, and the longer they listen, the more they realize it really, really is._

_Within moments, the three of them have linked hands and they’re dancing like maniacs in the study, not caring if they wake the household when they start singing along._  

***

The twins are the first out on the dance floor to join them, grabbing Kurt and Blaine and swinging them into giddy laughing whirlwinds while teaching them the words to the song. Moira, of course, is quick to follow with Stephen, Brendan with Chloe, Tim with Natasha...the floor fills with Adam and Sebastian's entire family, immediate, extended and adopted, everyone whirling and laughing and singing along to the chorus at the top of their lungs.

And - “Adam.” Sebastian taps his husband on the shoulder. “Adam, who is that David’s dancing with?”

“Hm?” Reluctantly, Adam pulls his eyes away from _his_ husband and looks across the bar. “Oh! Oh. Oh my. David and Elliott?”

“I thought it might be.” David is smiling shyly up into Elliott’s very unfairly good looking face as they dance. “Hmph. So much for that little fantasy.”

Adam smacks his behind to get his attention. “You just married _me_ , thank you very much,” he retorts in mock reproach. “If I think you’re too disappointed, I won’t let you do _anything_ to me tonight, legal or not.”

“Slander and lies.” With a flick of his wrist, Sebastian sends Adam spinning out and pulls him back in. “It’s a special night, you would never.”

“I would never,” Adam agrees. Something catches his eye over Sebastian’s shoulder. “Darling, oh my god, look. Your parents, it’s adorable.”

Sebastian turns to see Anne dragging Michael out onto the floor despite his laughing protests and when his staid father spins his mother down into a dramatic dip, he can't help but laugh and hold Adam close. “Can we be like that? My parents, your parents...Brendan and Chloe. Can we be like them?”

Adam rests his head on Sebastian’s shoulder. “And then some, darling. And then some.”

As the song draws to a close, the tempo slows and Sebastian reaches for his husband, cupping Adam's face in his hands for a long kiss just as the Reid brothers sing them out. The entire room falls away, no sound or sight in the world but each other as they breathe and taste and let their love eddy back and forth between the two of them.

Adam pulls back first, eyes alight and fists clenched tight in Sebastian's lapels. "That was our first kiss as a married couple. I mean, the first one where we weren't being told to do it."

"Was it?"

"Mmhm."

Sebastian smiles and wraps his arms around Adam's neck, drawing him close again so that their foreheads touch and they're just swaying in place. "I'm glad.”

“About anything in particular or just in general?”

“I’m glad,” Sebastian says, feeling every word in his every heart beat, “that my last first kiss is you."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so much love for the team of people that helped me with this.
> 
> Alana, for nudging me into putting these two together in the first place.
> 
> Knits and Sam, for cheering me along when I needed to know I was on the right track.
> 
> Mimsy, for her tireless corrections, editing, Britpicking, and deep repeated desire to murder me so hard.
> 
> And my readers, who continue to astound me with the level of affection you have displayed to me and to these fellows.
> 
> Thank you all, for everything.


End file.
